Speed cameras work!

Data, facts, and more about automated speed enforcement in Ottawa

If you’re someone who prefers that policy is informed by data and evidence, yesterday’s press conference from Premier Ford about banning speed cameras was a very frustrating spectacle to watch.

In Ottawa and other municipalities, the data shows that speed cameras significantly reduce vehicle speeds. Slower speeds = fewer collisions, and fewer serious or fatal injuries = safer streets for everyone.

Here’s data from Ottawa’s Road Safety Action Plan 2024 Annual Report. “High End Speeding” = drivers traveling more than 15 km/h over the limit.)

Ottawa also publishes speed camera data on its Open Ottawa portal. You can see month-by-month data for every speed camera location in Ottawa. For example, of the three cameras installed in Stittsville:

• Sacred Heart (Abbott): 95.9% compliance, and only 0.06% high-end speeders

• St. Stephen (Stittsville Main North): 91.7% compliance, and only 0.10% high-end speeders

• Holy Spirit (Stittsville Main): 92.7% compliance, and only 0.11% high-end speeders

There are fewer and fewer tickets issued by speed cameras each year. That’s a good thing. It means they’re working to change driver habits.

Financials

It costs about $72,000 to install a speed camera, and it costs about $48,500 per year to operate it. (Ottawa does not pay a commission or a “fee per ticket” to the speed camera operators, contrary to what Premier Ford suggested yesterday.) Those costs are recouped through fines issued by the cameras.

CTV Ottawa recently reported that revenue from fines totalled $20-million between January and August of this year.

The revenue gets reinvested into the City’s Road Safety Action Plan. By law, we cannot use the revenues for other City initiatives, like parks or transit. You can click here to see a list of projects funded in 2025 using camera fines. They include things like pedestrian safety and accessibility enhancements, new signals at intersections, motorcycle safety courses, roadway signage and lighting, and much more. Some of these projects are reinvested in school zones, but a lot of it goes to other high-collision areas.

Rules & regulations

All of the rules and implementation standards for speed cameras are set at the provincial level: eligible locations, signage/warnings about speed zones, amount of fines, and everything else. Cities aren’t making this up on the fly, they are following provincial regulations and best practices developed by the independent Ontario Traffic Council.

The Council put out a statement today: “Banning ASE takes one of the resources away that would otherwise have been evaluated by transportation engineers, technologists, and road safety professionals as an evidence-based, potentially life-saving solution to speeding. If the Governments [sic] own regulation doesn’t stand up to its own criticism, the easy fix is to change the regulation.”

If the Premier wants a bigger warning sign with flashing lights, he could easily change the regulation. If he doesn’t like the amount of a fine, he could lower it. Instead, he is throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Survey says

These cameras are popular in the community. A total of 1,035 Ottawa residents responded to a survey commissioned by the City of Ottawa in August 2024. Survey respondents were a randomly-selected and the sample size is considered statistically significant.

• 83% support use in areas where there are children near schools.

• 80% support use in areas near children’s parks and playgrounds.

• 49% support use on “any road where there is speeding”.

• 35% have received a ticket from an automated speed enforcement camera, and of those, 69% said it changed their behaviour.

• 71% support the funds from automated speed enforcement to be re- invested in road safety initiatives that help reduce the incidence of fatal and major injury collisions

Please slow down

To the thousands of Ottawa residents who drive responsibly and obey the speed limit, thank you! You’re helping to protect kids, seniors, pedestrians, cyclists, and your fellow drivers.

To everyone else, please slow down. Whether there’s a camera or not.

Recommended reading: Automated Speed Limit myths & facts, from the Ontario Traffic Council.