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Mono again calls on province to address road safety concerns

January 22, 2024   ·   0 Comments

By JAMES MATTHEWS, LOCAL JOURNALISM INITIATIVE REPORTER

Mono Mayor John Creelman has some ideas on how the province could raise awareness about road safety.

He even has a suggestion on where the provincial government can get the coin to cover his ideas.

Mono council called on Queen’s Park and other Ontario municipalities to recognize a road safety emergency on the province’s highways, roadways, and town thoroughfares.

“Road safety is of continuing and increasing concern to Ontarians,” Creelman said. “The number of traffic collisions, injuries, and even fatalities are at unacceptable levels.”

As such, Creelman called on the government to launch a provincewide road safety educational program. That initiative could be paid for by some of the money used to advertise Ontario Gaming and Lottery Corporation’s offerings.

Highway Transportation Act fines and penalties should be increased to better deter reckless driving above the speed limit.

He said municipalities should be allowed to deploy automated speed enforcement (ASE) in 80-kilometres per hour zones or less without having to declare them Community Safety Zones.

A working group with municipalities should be established to identify and recommend the elimination of regulatory red tape associated with the use of ASE and administrative penalties.

Steps should be taken to make sure Provincial Offences Act (POA) fines and penalties do not lose their deterrent effect over time. Fines for speeding have not increased for more than 30 years. And 60 per cent of fines for highway infractions remain at $85.

The means of collecting outstanding POA fines and victim surcharge money needs to be improved. It has been estimated that more than $1 billion is left uncollected from as far back as 2011.

Creelman said the estimate is taken from a white paper report by the Ontario Association of Police Services Boards. The association suggested a number of ways outstanding fines could be collected, including working with the federal government to garnish an individual’s tax refund.

“This may sound to be sort of punitive and arbitrary, but it’s already being done in at least two Canadian provinces,” he said. “So we’re completely behind the eight ball, relying exclusively on collection agencies.”

A collection agency takes 20 per cent of the sum if they’re successful at all.

Creelman said his motion is an amalgamation of many highway safety concerns that have been expressed over the years.

“The idea here is to try and get municipalities to join in on this,” Creelman said.

He anticipated that, when the idea of an educational program is brought to the provincial government, somebody at Queen’s Park will inevitably question where the money will be from.

“Well, you’re spending untold millions of dollars advertising games of chance and lotteries, why not take some of those monies and put it into a road safety campaign?” he said.

Creelman said he intends to file a Freedom of Information Act request to find out how much is spent on OLG advertising.

“The statistics, I think, speak for themselves,” he said about the need to focus on road safety.

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