(Quebec) Transport Minister Geneviève Guilbault wants to adopt a law allowing her to install more photo radars, particularly in school zones, to increase road safety.
Mme Guilbault had already announced this summer its intention to increase detection systems on the roads and to increase fines this summer, when it unveiled its national road safety strategy. “I don’t have a figure today, but I want us to increase their number. At the moment, we have 54 radars. It’s not a lot, especially since there are half of them that we can’t move easily,” she said.
The objectives of the road safety bill
- Establish the maximum speed limit at 30 km/h in school zones
- Make more photo radars available for use by municipalities
- Revise upward fines for certain offenses linked to behavior threatening the safety of more vulnerable users or in school zones, for example
- Transform certain offenses linked to photo radar into administrative sanctions to “reduce the burden on the justice system”
With its bill, it will be able to install detection systems “in a school zone”, in a place where “signage indicates, for the duration of construction or maintenance work on a public road, a speed limit to be respected other than that prescribed”, or “on a public road designated by the Minister of Transport or on a part of a public road thus designated”.
Vulnerable users
The legislative document also introduces a “regime of administrative monetary penalties” for at-fault motorists. These fines will be imposed by the Société de l’assurance automobile du Québec. The amounts will be determined by regulation.
The government of Quebec will also be able to delegate photo radars to cities and reach an agreement with a “municipality to pay it part of the sums collected”, “in particular for the financing required for the management and operation of such systems”.
The Ministry of Transport also sets in law at “30 km/h the speed limit applicable in a school zone, except on public roads where signs to the contrary appear”, and will increase “the fines for certain offenses resulting from unsafe behavior towards certain vulnerable users, including failure to give way to them.”