More people were caught running red lights in Metro Vancouver last year, but New Westminster seems to have bucked the trend.
ICBC's recent release of violators caught via its expanded red-light camera program show that the Metro Vancouver region experienced a 50 per cent spike, but in New Westminster, the numbers actually went down, as the Royal City saw a decrease in red-light camera tickets of 62 per cent issued in 2011 as compared to 2010.
In comparison, neighbouring municipalities experienced large increases, including Port Coquitlam at 1,639 per cent, Coquitlam at 713 per cent, Richmond at 506 per cent, Surrey at 385 per cent, Langley at 219 per cent and Burnaby at 148 per cent.
In New Westminster, the numbers went from 1,174 red-light camera tickets issued in 2010 to 445 in 2011. Burnaby's numbers show that 1,622 tickets were issued in 2010, rising to 4,027 in 2011.
The dramatic Metro Vancouver increase coincides with the addition of 20 new cameras being added in the past year, bringing the total to 140, with those cameras only active 25 per cent of the time.
Mark Milner, road safety project manager for ICBC, told The Record on Tuesday that the difference in the Burnaby and New Westminster numbers can be partially explained by the fact New Westminster cameras were installed later in the year.
"I wouldn't read much into the fluctuations," said Milner. "The numbers do reflect when cameras were installed. New Westminster was fairly late into the game, and there were quite a few Burnaby locations where the cameras were installed early in the program."
Milner said the increase in violation tickets wasn't unexpected, and it's evidence that the research that went into determining the camera locations was done well.
"There weren't any surprises for us because we had anticipated a 50 per cent increase in tickets, and that's what we saw."
Overall, the number of tickets issued jumped to 30,803 last year across B.C., all but about 1,200 of them issued in the municipalities from West Vancouver to Chilliwack, according to ICBC statistics.
In a perfect world, Milner said, numbers would go down as people stop running red lights, but ICBC's research tells them to expect this year's numbers to be relatively flat when compared to the 2011 numbers.
"I would expect we'll be in the 30,000 (ticket) range for the next couple of years," said Milner.
Milner also said that while the corporation has no plans to expand the pro-gram beyond the 140 cameras in use, they are always looking at data and seeing if the numbers are right for the red-light camera program.
"We ask the question, 'Can we prevent enough accidents and deaths to pay for another camera?'" said Milner.
"If we can make a business case to add more cameras, then we will look at it in the future. - As of right now, there are no concrete plans, going forward, to expand the program."
In an interview with The Province, Milner said the goal of the red-light camera program was to reduce accidents. ICBC hopes to pay for the $23-million startup costs and $1.2-million yearly operating budget through savings realized by fewer crash and injury claims, he said.
Milner said that while the camera takes a picture any time someone blows a red light, a ticket is only sent out in 25 per cent of cases.
Each digital licenceplate capture must be analyzed by an RCMP officer before the infraction notice is sent out.
Milner said the logic behind the 25 per cent rule is in part to avoid the program being seen as a tax grab.
At $167 a ticket, in 2011 there was $5.1-million worth of tickets issued, compared with $3.4 million in 2010.
Revenue generated by the tickets goes into provincial coffers to pay for traffic initiatives for all of B.C., whether they have cameras or not.
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