Making Communities and School Zones Safer
Province Working With Municipalities to Fight Speeding
Ontario intends to introduce legislation that would target unsafe drivers and help protect school children, seniors, other pedestrians and cyclists.
Premier Kathleen Wynne was in Ottawa today to announce intended legislation that, if passed, would give municipalities more tools to improve safety in community safety zones and school zones.
These measures would include:
- Automated speed enforcement (ASE) technology on municipal roads, which takes pictures of speeders’ licence plates and is already used in many parts of North America and Europe, and for community safety zones and school zones
- The ability to create zones with reduced speed limits to decrease the severity of pedestrian-vehicle collisions in urban areas
- A streamlined process for municipalities to participate in Ontario’s Red Light Camera program without the need for lengthy regulatory approval.
Ontario has heard from municipalities seeking to improve safety in their communities in the wake of collisions involving children, seniors, other pedestrians and cyclists, and is proposing these changes as a result.
Making roads safer for cyclists and pedestrians of all ages by giving municipalities options to enforce traffic laws is part of Ontario’s plan to create jobs, grow our economy and help people in their everyday lives.
QUOTES
” We have seen too many injuries and deaths caused by drivers who speed and endanger people’s lives. Our intent is to give municipalities more tools to help keep people safe on our roads.”
– Kathleen Wynne
Premier of Ontario
” Municipalities and our road safety partners have strongly advocated for tougher measures to stop dangerous drivers and better protect pedestrians. These measures would strengthen road safety in school zones and help municipalities keep their communities safe.”
– Steven Del Duca
Minister of Transportation
QUICK FACTS
- Speed is one of the biggest killers on Ontario’s roads: 14 per cent of all people killed on our roads in 2013 died in collisions where speed was a factor.
- In 2013, approximately three out of every four speed-related collisions occurred on municipal roads.
- Studies show that lowering the speed limit from 50 km/h to 40 km/h in urban areas would reduce the number of deaths by half.
