Many of us do it – creep up five, 10 or more km/h over the speed limit. “Everyone else on the road is going that fast, and I’m a cautious driver so it should be safe, right?” Wrong. When you increase your speed, you decrease your reaction time. Speeding costs, either in fines, human injuries or loss of life.
If you’re traveling at 60km/h in a posted 40km/h zone, the fine will be $150 with three demerit points. If you’re caught travelling 100km/h in a posted 60km/h zone, you’re looking at $480 with four demerit points. Add active construction, a community safety zone or a school zone and the fines increase as much as 60 to 100 per cent.
More importantly, those few seconds saved by speeding could have tragic consequences for other road users or even yourself. From 2017 to 2021, there were 209 drivers involved in fatal and major injury collisions related to speed and aggressive driving. No one intends to cause harm, but the data reveals 209 families grieving.
Automated speed enforcement works
Ottawa’s automated speed enforcement cameras improve road safety, including:
- 200 per cent increase in compliance with the speed limit
- 72 per cent decrease in high-end speeders (drivers traveling at 15 km/h or more over the speed limit)
- 11 per cent decrease in 85th percentile speed (the speed at which 85 per cent of traffic is travelling or below)
The City of Ottawa continues to add automated speed enforcement cameras to locations identified through screening and evaluation criteria that includes speeding and collision history and pedestrian use.
Interested in finding automated speed enforcement cameras throughout the city? Visit the City’s online traffic map(link is external). Click on the 'layers’ icon on the upper right (second one from the top), then in the pop-up menu, check off ‘Automated Speed Enforcement Camera’ and any other road information you’re interested in. The map below shows the 24 cameras currently installed across Ottawa. All speed camera locations are also listed(link is external) on the City website.
Revenue from speed camera fines is reinvested into the City of Ottawa’s Road Safety Action Plan program, which applies education, enforcement and engineering measures to promote road safety.
The ultimate goal is to foster a city-wide culture of road safety so that drivers follow the posted speed limits everywhere, not just at the cameras. Keep your hard-earned money in your pocket and keep all road users safe.
For more information on City programs and services, visit ottawa.ca, call 3-1-1 (TTY: 613-580-2401) or 613-580-2400 to contact the City using Canada Video Relay Service. You can also connect with us through Facebook(link is external), Twitter(link is external) and Instagram(link is external).
