Brave New World: BC’s New Speed and Red Light Cameras
The BC government approved new traffic cameras to use in the province. On October 19, the JENOPTIK TraffiStar SR39plus was added to the Motor Vehicle Act regulations as an approved device for speed and red light enforcement throughout BC. There was no official announcement although we knew something along these lines was coming. A few weeks earlier ICBC signed a $67 million contract to install these cameras at 140 intersections, replacing the old devices that have been used for about a decade.
What the new cameras can do what the old ones couldn’t
The new cameras use low-power radar to follow every vehicle that approaches the intersection in several lanes at once, day and night, and they record what they see. They photograph or video it, and that can be pulled up and reviewed by enforcement officials long after the driver has gone home. This new system can monitor several vehicles at once, even going in opposite directions, monitoring six lanes with ease. It uses low-power radar so radar detectors are unlikely to alert a driver in time to slow down.
The declared intent is to continue to use intersection enforcement cameras for red light and speeding violations. However these cameras have much more capability. The same model of the camera is said to be able to identify illegal turns, U-turns, drivers who roll past stop lines, and stops in a crosswalk. The government has not said whether this type of enforcement will take place. Of the 140 intersection cameras currently in BC, 35 are said to enforce speeding infractions although all of the cameras enforce red light infractions. As best we can tell, no legislative or regulation change is necessary to turn all 140 cameras into red light, speed, U-turn, or other infraction enforcement.
Nobody to reason with
When we appear on radio shows, many of the callers seem to be perfectly content with camera enforcement. We are not.
From a simple philosophical perspective, we as humans do not like the idea of being governed by robots. Behaviour that was once deemed wrong years or decades ago, such as homosexuality, was only challenged as a result of the fact that people continued to commit what was then an offence. It became clear that the behaviour of concern was not immoral but a law prohibiting it was immoral.
Could our society have developed if we were all governed by robots? Homosexuals could not have met and realized they were not alone? Public opinion could never have changed in a circumstance where offending the law was impossible. If we are governed by robots, can our society evolve to have greater freedoms? Unjust laws change when social friction is allowed to exist, and if every misstep is caught and punished, instead of social friction we have a particular level of inhuman oppression. This is not an issue of traffic law but rather what it is to be human in what should be a free and democratic society.
From a practical standpoint a police officer at the roadside uses judgment.
An officer can see that a driver passed the stop line to make room for an ambulance or that a driver went through a stale yellow (because slamming on the brakes with a loaded truck behind them would have been more dangerous than carrying on), and that officer can give a warning or let the whole thing go. Most drivers have benefited from that kind of discretion at some point in their driving career.
Of course a camera has no discretion. It measures and records. The program officer who looks at the photographs and video recording later confirms that an offence happened, and nothing in that process asks whether or not the ticket is fair or whether it’s right to punish the driver in the particular circumstances.
The ticket goes to the registered owner. They may not be the driver. A parent who lends the car to an adult child gets the ticket. You might get a ticket because your mechanic took your vehicle for a test drive. There is nobody at the scene to hear an explanation.
The government watching everyone
Every time the government expands camera enforcement, it is presented as a modest step. Red light cameras arrived in the late 1990s. For a period in British Columbia we had photo radar but a popular backlash contributed to a change in government. That government promised to eliminate the program, which they did once elected. Then the government changed and it came back. Speed enforcement at 35 intersections followed in 2019 and now every site is getting equipped so it can do far more than the job it was originally given.
Each step on its own seems easy to accept and few object to any single one of them, but taken together it feels as though BC is moving toward a future where every intersection is watched. Every small mistake turns into a fine that arrives in the mail weeks later, long after anyone could explain what actually happened.
This is all framed in the context of public safety, which is obviously a legitimate concern. But you also have to follow the money. The money keeps the system growing. Net ticket revenue from the camera program goes to BC municipalities. A government that profits from every ticket has little reason to slow down. In BC we are moving toward a province where machines watch the roads and human judgment has been removed from traffic enforcement. The future is arriving quickly, one regulation and one camera installation at a time.