Drivers will get ‘automated’ speeding tickets at two dangerous Kelowna intersections

KELOWNA – While the province isn’t using the term photo radar, it is planning to use existing red light cameras to issue speeding tickets at what it calls the highest-risk intersections in B.C.

Thirty-five intersections are being targeted in B.C. with only two in the Interior. They are both in Kelowna at Harvey Avenue and Cooper Road, and at Highway 97 and Banks Road.

"The previous government only saw fit to activate each safety camera for up to six hours a day and to target only red-light runners," Mike Farnworth, Minister of Public Safety and Solicitor General, said in a news release.

"We moved quickly to fully activate the red light cameras, and now we're adding speed enforcement – because it works, and because we want people who travel through these busy intersections to get where they're going safely," he said.

In all, the province studied 190 intersections in B.C. and selected 35 it believed could benefit from the new automated speeding ticket system.

The ticketing will start this summer.

The province doesn't say what speeds will trigger the tickets, but does say between 2012 and 2016 an average of 10,500 vehicles a year were speeding at least 30 kilometres per hour over the speed limit through intersections with red light cameras.

Speeding tickets will go to the registered owners of the vehicles.

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