Peter Heal’s wallet is $80 lighter after he was nailed for speeding in Barrie and mailed a ticket.
The city’s automated speed enforcement (ASE) cameras caught him travelling 52 kilometres an hour in a reduced 40-km/h zone on Anne Street North on Jan. 4, just after 1 p.m.
“I try to abide by the speed limit more than the average guy. I miss out once in a while, but grand scheme, not bad,” 61-year-old Heal, a city resident since 2008, told BarrieToday. “It was kind of a surprise to me. I got caught off guard myself.
“Yes, I was going 52 (km/h) in a 40 (km/h) in a 40 time. Legally, I suppose,” he said of his crime. “You take that pride in yourself and say I’m a law-abiding person, and it’s like what a drag.”
ASE is a system that uses a camera and a speed-measuring device to detect and capture images of the licence plates of vehicles travelling faster than the posted speed limit in school or community safety zones. These types of charges are the responsibility of the vehicle owner, not the driver.
Heal said he was upset about getting a speeding ticket for more than just the fine ($60, plus $20 in fees).
“I am that guy always driving the limit, or close to it, and watch people pass me wondering ‘why the rush’,” he said. “In school zones I am particularly aware of the limit during the times when the school zone lights are flashing.”
Heal lives in Barrie’s Sandy Hollow area, so a common trip is Edgehill Drive to Anne Street, then up Anne past Portage View Public School. He said for years there were flashing lights to let drivers know that students are out and about, reducing the speed limit to 40 km/h in the school zone.
“So now, it turns out there is a speed camera and no more flashing lights in the school zone,” he said.
The flashing lights to warn of a 40-km/h zone have been deactivated because Ontario law requires the flashing beacons, normally in place, not be active when the sign indicating the times of the 40-km/h speed limit has been installed.
“So the other day … I was heading up the hill on Anne towards the school zone, knowing it was around the time the reduced speed would be in effect, but since the lights were not flashing, I assumed that 50 (km/h) was still good.
“As I approached the intersection, I saw a flash and thought that was odd. Well, it turns out the flash was a camera catching me ‘speeding’.”
While the ASE cameras are designed to improve safety, Heal has his doubts.
“I would love to see the study that shows it is safer to have a speed camera to keep drivers from speeding, versus flashing lights to let them know to slow down during certain times throughout the day,” he said. “How can it be that nothing (no flashing lights) is better at warning drivers than flashing lights?
“To me, it seems purposefully intended to catch people speeding, at the risk to the safety of the school children.”
Since the ASE cameras became operational in late 2023, city council decided times will be simplified and clarified for drivers navigating the new system. By direct motion in mid-January, council changed what’s called the city’s rates of speed bylaw. Enforcement times will move to 7 a.m. until 5 p.m., Monday to Friday, Sept. 1 to June 30 at the ASE and variable times zones, basically when students are in school.
Enforcement times are now a complicated 7:40-9:25 a.m., 12:55-2:05 p.m., 3-4 p.m., Monday to Friday, September until June.
Barrie’s first two ASE locations are eastbound on Big Bay Point Road near Willow Landing and St. Michael the Archangel Catholic elementary schools and southbound on Anne Street North, near Portage View and Nouvelle-Alliance schools.
The new times and signs are to be in place by late February, when the cameras will be moved to northbound Essa Road near Timothy Christian School and westbound Ardagh Road in the vicinity of Heritage Baptist Church.
Ticket threshold speeds have not been revealed by the city, other than the 40-km/h speed limit — although 52 km/h is obviously too fast, given Heal’s ticket.
The City of Guelph, which is a constant Barrie comparator, has four ASE cameras rotated every three months at 16 locations in 30-km/h school zones.
From Aug. 1 to Dec. 31 last year, 3,820 speeding tickets were issued for fines totalling $447,120.
The City of Guelph received about $70,000, or 15.6 per cent of that fine revenue, which went into a reserve fund for road safety.
Michelle Banfield, Barrie’s executive director of development services, is to have a public memo to city council in mid-March to report the first ASE locations’ results, after the cameras are moved to the new spots in late February.
Barrie staff have said the memo will report on three months of data — since the speed cameras were first operational in early December — and information on the city’s percentage of the fine revenue is not available at this point.
The ASE fines go into Provincial Offences Court revenues for the municipality where the charges are laid, and are treated no differently than the charges that would be laid by a police service.
Staff say it’s difficult to provide a percentage, as the net revenues fluctuate due to factors such as timing of payment, extension of payment, payments not being made, and trials, where the fines can be reduced.
The speeding penalty is a fine, but tickets issued through ASE don’t result in demerit points. The fine is based on by how much the driver is exceeding the speed limit. The city has said ASE speeding tickets will arrive within 30 days after the violation occurs.
Barrie’s cameras are to be rotated through different community safety zones every few months, and there are plenty of choices.
The city has 27 community safety zones. They are established by municipal councils through a bylaw, and cover road areas where there is a higher risk to, or concern for, drivers, pedestrians, cyclists and/or others who share the space.
Highway Traffic Act fines, including speeding, are doubled in community safety zones and many community safety zones are located close to schools. Barrie has 81 sections of road designated as community safety zones in accordance with the community safety zones bylaw.
Barrie’s ASE camera equipment cost $100,000 and yearly operational costs are $370,000, staff have said. The fines will cover a portion of the ASE program’s costs.
Local Authority Services (LAS), the business services arm of the Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO), and the city signed an agreement last summer that LAS will initially fund two provincial offences officers who will process speed-camera violations in Barrie.
— With Files from GuelphToday
