idk about these; I haven’t driven significantly in Toronto in over a decade, but Calgary has mobile speed cameras in unmarked cars, so they can be moved around. They just look like a car parked on the side of the road. And people slow down for school zones in Calgary.
I think they’re very effective. As soon as you cross the border to BC, where automated speeding cameras are illegal, people drive about 10km/h faster, it feels like. On Deerfoot (in Calgary), you’d occasionally have someone pass at +30. On the Island Highway, +40 isn’t atypical. (That’s 150 km/h… Crazy fast, especially knowing that kinetic energy is the square of velocity.) And people regularly blast through school zones in BC at +30, and +40 isn’t overly unusual (70 km/h in a 30 zone). (Comparatively, 50 in a 30 zone was the usual max I noticed in Alberta).
Or maybe it’s just that BC drivers are massive speeders, and the speed cameras thing isn’t the reason. Hard to know without data.
In Ontario, they are in fixed places and signage is required ahead of their position. Heck, they are on google maps. Unless you are driving on an empty road, you will know where they are when suddenly everyone slows down, then speeds up again about 20 seconds later. Quebec, on the other hand, is more like Calgary. They do have signs as well, but they move the little vans around. They are pretty conspicuous though, so easy to spot. I wonder if there is any data on their efficacy by deployment. Or maybe it just depends on the individual. I know one guy who got tagged doing 60ish three times in a week in the same spot because he never noticed the new camera, the giant flash, or the fact that they’d arbitrarily changed the speed limit from 60 to 50 three years prior. Maybe they’re just plain effective on that type of person.
As soon as you know where the speed camera is, it’s very easy to get away with speeding.
idk about these; I haven’t driven significantly in Toronto in over a decade, but Calgary has mobile speed cameras in unmarked cars, so they can be moved around. They just look like a car parked on the side of the road. And people slow down for school zones in Calgary.
I think they’re very effective. As soon as you cross the border to BC, where automated speeding cameras are illegal, people drive about 10km/h faster, it feels like. On Deerfoot (in Calgary), you’d occasionally have someone pass at +30. On the Island Highway, +40 isn’t atypical. (That’s 150 km/h… Crazy fast, especially knowing that kinetic energy is the square of velocity.) And people regularly blast through school zones in BC at +30, and +40 isn’t overly unusual (70 km/h in a 30 zone). (Comparatively, 50 in a 30 zone was the usual max I noticed in Alberta).
Or maybe it’s just that BC drivers are massive speeders, and the speed cameras thing isn’t the reason. Hard to know without data.
In Ontario, they are in fixed places and signage is required ahead of their position. Heck, they are on google maps. Unless you are driving on an empty road, you will know where they are when suddenly everyone slows down, then speeds up again about 20 seconds later. Quebec, on the other hand, is more like Calgary. They do have signs as well, but they move the little vans around. They are pretty conspicuous though, so easy to spot. I wonder if there is any data on their efficacy by deployment. Or maybe it just depends on the individual. I know one guy who got tagged doing 60ish three times in a week in the same spot because he never noticed the new camera, the giant flash, or the fact that they’d arbitrarily changed the speed limit from 60 to 50 three years prior. Maybe they’re just plain effective on that type of person.