Saanich Coun. Colin Plant, who also chairs the Capital Regional District’s transportation safety committee, says that law enforcement simply can’t keep up with the amount of speeders on the Malahat.
“Officers on the [committee] have indicated that they could have speed enforcement up there 24 hours a day and they would still probably not be able to capture everybody who is doing the speeding on that highway, so there is a need for enforcement of limits on there,” he said.
In response to this ongoing issue, Plant and the committee are asking the CRD to look into a proposal that would see cameras record license plates at various intervals along the stretch. If a driver undercuts the allotted time that it should take them to get from point A to point B, they’ll get a fine.
“The idea with [this enforcement] is that you tell people that this is an interval-based highway. Don’t speed and you won’t get a ticket,” he said.
That black and white style of enforcement is of the main differences between this idea and the province’s controversial photo radar program that ended in 2001, Plant explains, and similar programs have been implemented successfully in other jurisdictions, both in Canada and abroad.
“It’s not new. It’s new for us,” he noted.
The committee will present at a CRD board meeting in the coming weeks.
Ultimately the proposal, which Plant says is in its infancy, will have to be forwarded to the province for approval before any decisions can be made.
Plant sees this as a first step, citing the possibility to have the technology put in place elsewhere in the province as well.
