Velocity cameras are controversial in Canada. So why does Europe love them?

[ad_1] On a winter’s day in 2024, in a suburban city close to Padua, Italy, commuters awoke to a shock: a velocity digital camera, hacked down by an angle grinder, bearing the message “Fleximan is coming."

After dozens of copycat velocity digital camera assaults, the identify Fleximan has achieved a form of mythic standing in Italy.

“He was thought of an area hero,” mentioned Tom Roper, an English college proprietor who has lived within the area for 15 years. “I had folks calling me, asking, ‘Have you learnt Fleximan?’”

However the flashiness of Fleximan’s vigilante actions conceal a surprisingly broad consensus, throughout Europe, that velocity cameras not solely work however are extensively desired.

“Should you ask residents, help for enforcement is kind of excessive,” mentioned Jenny Carson, a challenge supervisor on the European Transport Security Council (ETSC), based mostly in Brussels, Belgium. “Folks need speeds to be diminished.”

Italy, house to greater than 10,000 energetic velocity cameras — essentially the most in all of Europe — is proof of this development. A 2018 European survey confirmed almost 70 per cent of Italians supported stricter guidelines on dashing — regardless of almost 50 per cent saying they sped within the final 30 days.

At a time when Ontario Premier Doug Ford has gone to conflict with velocity cameras — calling them a “money seize” and threatening to ban the expertise outright — it’s value asking the query: how did Europe handle to generate such broad help for automated enforcement and implement a system that could possibly be saving 1000's of lives every year?

The French experiment In 2002, after a sequence of high-profile site visitors accidents, French President Jacques Chirac promised to make lowering site visitors deaths a core coverage of his authorities. Right now, the nation has greater than 2,400 cameras in operation.

Laurent Carnis, a site visitors security knowledgeable at France’s Université Gustave Eiffel, mentioned France provides an unlucky lesson for Canada: constructing broad help for a system like theirs actually does require buy-in on the prime.

“It’s crucial to have political dedication,” he mentioned.

WATCH | Ontario Premier Doug Ford bans velocity cameras: Ford to ban velocity cameras in Ontario

Ontario Premier Doug Ford says his authorities will introduce laws to ban velocity cameras, as a substitute establishing a provincial fund to assist municipalities put in place different "proactive traffic-calming initiatives." In France, that dedication helped construct the centralized programs essential to levy fines in opposition to drivers from throughout the nation, and past.

Like different international locations in Europe, France additionally handled velocity cameras as an academic alternative as a lot as an enforcement device.

It used two sorts of cameras: fastened ones, signposted effectively upfront, to coach drivers to count on automated enforcement; and cellular ones, used to penalize speeders who tried to recreation the system.

“The primary is for prevention, the second is for punishment,” Carnis mentioned. “That is the speculation of deterrence. And it really works fairly effectively.”

Throughout Europe, comparable programs have resulted in common speeds dropping by 10 km/h or extra, and street accidents falling by wherever from 20 to 70 per cent.

“We estimate that some 1,000 lives, and plenty of extra accidents, had been averted,” Carnis mentioned.

‘Like a vaccine’ This tracks with leads to Canada, the place municipalities have reported common velocity reductions of 20 km/h or extra within the neighborhood of velocity cameras.

However specialists say such rapid influence has some downsides. With the best charges of dashing nearly eradicated in a single day, Carnis says, "what stays… is 'small offences.'"

Carnis says that’s doubtless one issue behind the rising opposition to hurry cameras in France, which has not too long ago seen vigilantes destroy as a lot as 75 per cent of the community.

“Folks began saying, ‘It’s only a money seize,’” he defined. “It’s like a vaccine — [when it works] the variety of people who find themselves impacted is decrease and decrease, so some folks conclude that we must always cease vaccination.”

<img loading="lazy" alt="A destroyed speed camera by a roadside." srcset="https://i.cbc.ca/ais/afcb20d5-ba91-439a-94f9-88e9b7c967ae,1761664138133/full/max/0/default.jpg?im=Crop%2Crect%3D%280%2C0%2C2000%2C1333%29%3BResize%3D805 805w,https://i.cbc.ca/ais/afcb20d5-ba91-439a-94f9-88e9b7c967ae,1761664138133/full/max/0/default.jpg?im=Crop%2Crect%3D%280%2C0%2C2000%2C1333%29%3BResize%3D1104 1104w,https://i.cbc.ca/ais/afcb20d5-ba91-439a-94f9-88e9b7c967ae,1761664138133/full/max/0/default.jpg?im=Crop%2Crect%3D%280%2C0%2C2000%2C1333%29%3BResize%3D1280 1280w" sizes="(max-width: 762px) 93.6vw,730px" src="https://i.cbc.ca/ais/afcb20d5-ba91-439a-94f9-88e9b7c967ae,1761664138133/full/max/0/default.jpg?im=Crop%2Crect%3D%280%2C0%2C2000%2C1333%29%3B" style="aspect-ratio:1.5003750937734435" data-cy="image-img"/> A velocity digital camera was vandalized on the facet of a nationwide street. France, Hautes-Alpes, September 30, 2025. (Thibaut Durand/Hans Lucas/AFP by way of Getty Photos) That’s one cause specialists like Carnis advise governments to be selective — and clear — about who they aim with velocity cameras.

“After we first put out velocity cameras, I needed them set at 20 miles [32 km] an hour [over the limit] or one thing,” mentioned Richard Retting, a site visitors security knowledgeable who helped implement North America’s first site visitors cameras, in New York Metropolis. “Should you deal with outliers which can be going very quick, you construct extra public help.”

That has been a core of Ford’s criticism of Ontario’s velocity digital camera packages. He’s mentioned drivers are being unfairly focused for going 5 or 10 kilometres over the restrict — regardless of thresholds truly set at 11 km/h over, and a number of other of his personal cupboard ministers being clocked at 3 times that.

“Individuals who have historically been capable of evade legislation enforcement are delicate to this difficulty,” Retting mentioned. “Finally, one of many arguments in opposition to automated enforcement is that it doesn’t discriminate. It’s additionally a terrific argument for it.”

Too quick — or too gradual? However Canada’s issues with dashing might go deeper. Retting and Carnis each stress that earlier than velocity cameras might be applied, velocity limits ought to truly make sense.

<img loading="lazy" alt="A man with very white sneakers leans against a dark car." srcset="https://i.cbc.ca/ais/69f13745-4b69-481b-8e64-ed028d50b353,1761671177745/full/max/0/default.jpg?im=Crop%2Crect%3D%280%2C0%2C1208%2C1292%29%3BResize%3D805 805w,https://i.cbc.ca/ais/69f13745-4b69-481b-8e64-ed028d50b353,1761671177745/full/max/0/default.jpg?im=Crop%2Crect%3D%280%2C0%2C1208%2C1292%29%3BResize%3D1104 1104w,https://i.cbc.ca/ais/69f13745-4b69-481b-8e64-ed028d50b353,1761671177745/full/max/0/default.jpg?im=Crop%2Crect%3D%280%2C0%2C1208%2C1292%29%3BResize%3D1280 1280w" sizes="(max-width: 762px) 93.6vw,730px" src="https://i.cbc.ca/ais/69f13745-4b69-481b-8e64-ed028d50b353,1761671177745/full/max/0/default.jpg?im=Crop%2Crect%3D%280%2C0%2C1208%2C1292%29%3B" style="aspect-ratio:0.934984520123839" data-cy="image-img"/> Tom Roper, who lives close to Padua, Italy, is in favour of velocity cameras, regardless that he has been caught dashing just a few instances himself. (Submitted by Tom Roper) Examine after research has proven that the broad lanes and ample shoulders widespread in Canadian street design usually encourage larger speeds. And as vehicles and their security options have developed, drivers are ever extra faraway from the hazards of the street, and plenty of really feel safer breaking the velocity restrict.

“You must make sure that, earlier than you implement the velocity restrict, [that] the velocity restrict is significant,” Carnis mentioned.

However even all of that also won't cease velocity cameras’ opponents.

In Italy, the place roads are sometimes slender and filled with site visitors, and velocity cameras are already recognized on GPS, Fleximan’s vigilantism has prompted Deputy Premier Matteo Salvini to denounce the present system.

This reveals that — amongst politicians, no less than — Europe’s broad help for velocity cameras could also be beginning to crumble.

Roper, the varsity proprietor in Italy, has been hit with velocity digital camera tickets just a few instances in his many years driving throughout Europe. However he nonetheless counts himself among the many expertise’s supporters.