Freedom or Fraud? The Real Cost of Speed Cameras

What if your next speeding ticket came from a machine you can’t question, can’t confront, and can’t appeal?

Gavin Tighe and Stephen Thiele take aim at Toronto's controversial speed camera program, dissecting its implications for justice, privacy, and public policy. 

From discussing the opaque review process to sharing personal anecdotes of fines issued without due process, the duo explores how what began as a public safety initiative has morphed into what they argue is a taxpayer-funded surveillance scheme and revenue grab. 

Touching on comparisons, legal rights, and political consequences, this episode offers a passionate and provocative critique of automated enforcement and raises pressing questions about the erosion of democratic protections under the guise of road safety.

Listen For

2:48 Machine Justice: The Speed Camera Deep Dive

5:18 The Illusion of Safety and the Real Agenda

8:22 Toronto’s $7 Million Speed Trap

15:04 No Appeal, No Problem: The Kafkaesque Review Process

30:33 What Did the Camera Ever Do?

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Contact Us

Gardiner Roberts website | Gavin email | Stephen email  

Transcript

Stephen Thiele (00:00):

It's a little bit discomforting to always be watched, and certainly we can't trust government. The lack of transparency, we've already talked about that with the speed camera is a problem, and I think maybe we should talk about your experience in terms of basically being guilty without being able to defend yourself.

Gavin Tighe (00:26):

Hello and welcome to the next episode of Beneath the Law. Gavin Tighe here with the Blue Jay fan of all time. Stephen Thiele,

Stephen Thiele (00:34):

I'm here. The Blue Jays are in first and heading for the Postseason.

Gavin Tighe (00:41):

They are definitely heading for the postseason. Can they do something in the first eight innings of the game instead of wait until the bottom of the ninth? What the heck? It's like every game it's like, it's like a drama. I don't know.

Stephen Thiele (00:56):

They were just getting the hearts of the fans racing and the coaching staff.

Gavin Tighe (01:02):

I tell you, they're on fire, but they know how to win.

(01:05):

Yeah, so that's terrific. So speaking of on fire and moving too quickly, I've speeding around. I've got a real, as you said before we started today, B in my bonnet about the latest cash grab from City Hall here in Toronto, Canada, which is speed cameras, which I know are a very popular piece of technology for a lot of municipalities, not just in Canada, but around the world. And Sure, I mean, look, they are a technology that is available to enforce what is in Canada referred to as a strict liability offense, which is in the sense that a strict liability offense for our listeners to understand is if you do it, you're guilty. There's no issue of, did you mean to do it or there's no issue of intention or anything else. It's strict liability. If the speed limit's 40 and you do 45, you're speeding, period.

Stephen Thiele (02:12):

Right? Well, that's a hundred percent correct, although going five kilometers over the speed limit should hardly classify as a crime or something that should cause you to be penalized. But it's above the speed limit. And so yes, you can certainly get charged and get a ticket for that. And speed cameras allow you to do that now or allow municipalities to issue those tickets without a police officer being present to actually catch you under a radar gun because the speed camera operates as one.

Gavin Tighe (02:48):

Well, that's a pretty funny part of it. I think that in looking into this a little deeper, and just so our listeners understand, we all know anyone in any municipality will understand what we're talking about. There's two general types of surveillance cameras operating in most traffic jurisdictions, at least as far as I know, there might be others. One is the red light camera, which gets you if you are in the intersection when the light turns red and sends a ticket to the owner of the vehicle, in other words, to whomever the plate is registered that the ticket or is sent to that. So in other words, they're ticketing the machine, not individual driver who ran the red light. Number two is speed cameras, which I take it, have a radar device similar to a radar gun that you would see in commonplace in speed traps everywhere. These are stationary speed traps that have a radar device that with a camera that again, as soon as they ping you doing over the speed limit, they take a picture of the license plate and again, send a ticket to the owner of the vehicle. That sounds innocuous enough, but there's a whole series of issues that relate to that, particularly here in Toronto I think that have really caused me some consternation.

Stephen Thiele (04:13):

Well, I think what's controversial about the speed cameras, and you'll talk about your own experiences with it, but one of the things that I've read about is the entire lack of transparency with respect to how are the speed cameras set by the municipality, right? As you said, Gavin, if I go five kilometers over the speed limit, I'm technically speeding. I'm breaking the law, I'm breaking the Highway Traffic Act rules, I'm breaking the rules of the municipality in terms of the zone where the mileage speed limit has been set. And we don't know if I go one kilometer over the speed limit, I'm speeding. Is the camera set for that? Technically, I mean, we saw that in Vaughn. They had actually, they had them implemented and then the machine issued what, 30,000 tickets in a half a day or something, and so they had to be taken down. It's just absolutely, the lack of transparency in my view is ridiculous.

Gavin Tighe (05:18):

And let's get into this. So let's just be clear. I mean, you'll hear a lot of, oh, we were really interested in slowing people down and the reason for the speed cameras is to slow everyone down so that there's less traffic accidents and et cetera. I'd love to see the statistics in regards to whether or not there are in fact less traffic accidents or not. Because my experience is, there's lots of apps, for example, that when you're driving, we'll show you exactly where the speed cameras are. So you slow down for 10 seconds while you go by the speed camera and then traffic picks up again immediately. So I don't know that it's, I guess it slows people down momentarily, but I don't actually think that that's the real purpose behind the speed cameras. I don't think the purpose of the speed cameras is to slow anybody down. I think the purpose of the speed cameras is a revenue grab by municipalities,

Stephen Thiele (06:16):

Easy, easy revenue grab. It replaces actual police officers monitoring traffic or what we used to call traffic cops.

Gavin Tighe (06:27):

Well, that's an interesting point because I understand that there's actually under the act requires there to actually be an officer. They haven't completely delegated this to the terminator of traffic tickets. There's a person apparently that goes through these, I'd love to see how many they rejected.

Stephen Thiele (06:46):

Probably zero. Well, sitting in an office somewhere rather than being on the street and actually having a police presence.

Gavin Tighe (06:53):

Well, yeah, but doing what? Looking at, I mean, how many of these tickets do you think the officer rejected? Zero.

Stephen Thiele (06:59):

Well, who knows? We don't have what a job that would be. We don't have statistics for that. That would be an interesting freedom of information request for somebody to make, particularly in the

Gavin Tighe (07:09):

Media. And I'm sure the review would've been diligent.

Stephen Thiele (07:12):

You might get pages and pages and stuff.

Gavin Tighe (07:14):

So this is really what I mean, look, there's a lot of good public policy reasons behind this. I mean, initially I think the speed cameras were put in specifically targeting school zones and what are referred to as community safety zones. In other words, danger areas where there's a real possibility of pedestrian traffic, et cetera. So hey, slow down. You never know when a kid's going to run out into traffic around a school. That makes all sorts of sense. But I really do think that it's been abused and I can think of a few speed cameras that some have nothing to do with schools or are in, yeah, okay. They're within blocks of schools, but they're really designed as what I call fishing holes. They lower the speed limit a level in that area that as a driver feels like incredibly slow. And the purpose of it is frankly, to catch you. They want to send you a bill for this ticket, right? I mean, is there anything more than that in some of these speed cameras?

Stephen Thiele (08:22):

Well, look, if we've got the infamous one here in Toronto on Parkside Drive, which is basically a street that runs north and south and divides a residential community. I don't know where the school is there and High Park, I guess maybe the park is a community safety zone because there are people running around the park, although they've banned cars from the parks, banned parking. So I don't know how many cars are actually down to Hyde Park anymore, but that's another issue on the politics side. But they've had this speed camera up there and it's a permanent one now that has generated something like $7 million in revenue since its installation and has been cut down numerous times by

Gavin Tighe (09:17):

Who knows? Speaking camera vigilantes.

Stephen Thiele (09:19):

Yeah, well, it's like Guy Fox Day or whatever V for vendetta in terms of protesting against government and government having a watchful eye on this particular roadway, which I've driven on Gavin, and frankly, I can't drive more than 20 kilometers there because it's always jammed up. Well, I can

Gavin Tighe (09:46):

Tell you that I went by one today. There's several that I pass on my route and I confess guilty is charged. I actually drive in city of Toronto, believe it or not, and coming down today to record Sunday. So it's nice quiet day, not too much traffic. There was one on Jarvis Street here in Toronto. I called it the headless speed camera because the head of it was lying beside it on the side of the road. Someone had removed it, and it was one of the major elevated ones that they've been trying desperately to remove from the ability to vandalize, but it's certainly overnight. And I passed it the other day and it was fine. So over the weekend, someone has decided to decapitate the speed camera on Jarvis Street and another one that I know that I go by all the time, and it's just in a remarkable spot.

(10:37):

It's right at the bottom of a hill. So even if you're driving there, even if you're driving trying carefully, your carts pick up speed on a hill and they try to nail you right at the bottom of a little gully in the road so that you're going a little faster. And that one has been knocked over at least six times that I've seen in the last year. So there's a lot of people who are really, I guess taking this into their own hands and trying to dissuade the city of Toronto to become a bit of a sport, I guess, to vandalize these speed cameras.

Stephen Thiele (11:14):

Well, look it arkins back to me. We read it in high school in 1984 where you've got cameras, government installing cameras, watching every move that a person makes, and that certainly makes me feel uncomfortable. I don't want to be under the watchful eye of government all the time. I don't like to be under the watchful eye of security cameras in buildings. I understand that they protect us in some respects, but it's a little bit discomforting to always be watched and certainly we can't trust government. The lack of transparency, we've already talked about that with the speed camera is a problem. And I think maybe we should talk about your experience in terms of basically being guilty without being able to defend yourself.

Gavin Tighe (12:05):

No, absolutely. So this is anecdotally. So I own a car and I have a number of children who drive the car. They're not children anymore, but one of them who shall remain nameless driving one of the, and lo and behold, I got a ticket in the mail. So I got the ticket as they own the owner, owner of the vehicle owner. And to raise this point, this is I think a real big issue because those proponents of speed cameras will say, well, it's designed to, if it's not your car, why do you care? So for example, if a company owns a car, if there's a company car in, you're driving it, what are they going to do to the company? I mean, the company car for example, they send a ticket to the company. I guess the remedy is, well, we won't renew your license. Well, companies don't have licenses, so who cares? What would the city of Toronto's enforcement mechanism be against a corporate vehicle?

Stephen Thiele (13:08):

I have no idea. I have no idea either. It's a great question.

Gavin Tighe (13:11):

So I mean, tickets are all well and good in any kind of fine in any law enforcement matters if there is actually a remedy. So what draws to my mind an analogy is I've gotten these before too. I confess everyone's going to think I'm quite the guilty fellow, but in a private parking lot, you'll often get these faux tickets that look like they are parking tickets, but they're not parking tickets. What they are is just notices from the private owner of the parking lot that you owe SX, and then you say, no, I don't. I'm not paying you anything. And what do they do? Well, they usually, they can send it to a collection agency and collection agencies will harass you And collection agencies, most people know the way that works generally speaking is if they collect a hundred bucks, they take a percentage of that as their fee.

(14:08):

So they're an eat what you kill type of organization. And so my interesting anecdote with the speed camera issue is, first of all, I wasn't driving, but I got a ticket. So I'm a lawyer, and one of the things I was always taught was as a lawyer, I have the right to, if the government charges me with something or as a citizen, I have the right for the government to prove the case. I still think we live in a society where one is innocent until proven guilty. Now admittedly, strict liability towards pretty easy to prove, but prove it. I mean, this is a machine that as we've talked about, is getting battered and beaten on a regular basis. I mean, is it working right? When's the last time the speed was calibrated on that? I'd like to see the records with respect to that. And if I owe the money, fine.

(15:04):

If I don't, I don't. So I tried to plead not guilty to an offense and I went on the website, there is no way to plead not guilty to this offense. You can ask for a review by some nameless, faceless person in a star chamber, whatever that means. And my experience was I went on, the only thing you could do is ask for a review. I did that. The next communication I got was from a collection agency, a private collection agency. So the city of Toronto appears to be ignoring requests for review. I was guilty. They apparently sent this out to a collection agency saying I owed the money and I was disputing the fact that I owed the money. That process went nowhere. I never heard a word out of the star chamber of the review. I got a note from a private collection agency who is presumably taking a percentage of these tickets. This is something that I think that the public is completely unaware of. So who got that sweetheart deal?

Stephen Thiele (16:12):

Yeah. Well look, I mean you hate to say it, but when you hear facts like that, what pops into your mind is that this is a complete scam.

Gavin Tighe (16:23):

It's a cash grab period.

Stephen Thiele (16:26):

It's a cash grab. Because if the city is supposed to have a review process, and I think the review process is online somewhere, the collection agency, but the collection agency shouldn't be sending you a letter, that should not be the response until the review is done.

Gavin Tighe (16:45):

Well, there is no review. The review process is completely opaque. One of the things I think that in a free and democratic society, one of the things that is a pillar of any free and democratic society is an open court system. We don't hopefully don't live in a star chamber world where nameless and faceless decision makers decide issues. I mean, you have a right to confront your accuser. All of these sort of basic principles are thrown out the window when it comes to the cash grab of these speed cameras.

Stephen Thiele (17:21):

Well, and it's interesting, Gavin, we don't practice criminal law, but my understanding way back when we didn't have speed cameras is one of the issues that a defense attorney would raise would be the calibration of the radar 100 police officer was using. You can ask for

Gavin Tighe (17:41):

Disclosure of the maintenance records

Stephen Thiele (17:43):

On how set it up on the device, right?

Gavin Tighe (17:46):

Disclosure is a fundamental right of any accused. You're entitled to know the crown's case before you plead guilty. But here you don't even get to plead. There is no ability to plead anything. It's just if you dispute it, we'll review it, but the next communication was pay up or your credit rating will be affected. That's just by a private agency. This is beyond anything to do with the criminal justice system. This is purely the city of Toronto trying to collect money. I can tell you I I have not paid that ticket.

Stephen Thiele (18:24):

And like Gavin, practically, how would they even collect if let's say it's an $80 ticket?

Gavin Tighe (18:29):

I have no idea.

Stephen Thiele (18:30):

Where would you go? You can't go to a small claims court. They wouldn't even entertain that kind of a claim.

Gavin Tighe (18:37):

I think the answer is, is that they plan, look, they're working on percentages. Most people get a bill. Most people get a ticket from the city, and I love the nomenclature of the victim surcharge that they tackle. Who's the victim? The camera, I mean the radar gun. And then they charge you a fee also. They charge you a license plate lookup fee.

Stephen Thiele (19:06):

Yeah, the MTO search fee.

Gavin Tighe (19:07):

Well, I mean for goodness sake, how else could they get the license? I mean, it's baked into it. There's no ability for someone to stop you and ask for your license and registration, which a police officer would do if you were stopped in a traffic stop. But then they charge you for that. That is, to me, outrageous. In addition to that, there's no demerit points of course, because it's not a personal charge. It's a charge against the machine. And again, I raised the point. I can tell you I've renewed my license in the face of that ticket, which I did not have not paid. And as far as I know has gone into the abyss and black hole of the review process, the only thing I've got is a collection agency notice. And I had no difficulty renewing my license. So what is the city of Toronto's enforcement mechanism?

Stephen Thiele (20:00):

Well, and I think that leads to the issue that we're seeing now. I mean, the Ontario Provincial government under Doug Ford agreed to allow cities to put speed cameras in place. And I think John Tory was a proponent of having that implemented. The provincial government listened at this is what now, almost 10 years ago. And now Premier Ford has come out against the speed cameras too because of what is happening. And it's, to me, we're looking at the cost of the speed cameras itself, which apparently is less than the revenue that they're making at City of Toronto. But now, well, we don't know, but now we've got these cameras being cut down. There's all kinds of vandalism going on, and now police are investigating to catch the quote shadowy figure who was seen, captured in another camera. You've got now a surveillance camera on the speed camera to catch this shadowy figure cutting down the Parkside camera. And so how much is that costing us now from the taxpayer? Aren't there better crimes to be investigating?

Gavin Tighe (21:16):

Yeah, well look, no one can be advocating for the destruction of public property. And we're certainly are not doing that here. And I certainly decry that in any shape or form. And I don't think it's up to one individual person who doesn't like a particular policy of a government to decide, well, they're going to take the matter into their own hands and knock the camera down because they don't like speed cameras. But I mean, I wonder about the math of all of this. I think that there's this great gleeful, and I don't know what the numbers are in terms of the net revenue that these generate from the city, but I understood that each camera is costing about $50,000 a year to operate. These aren't just sort of, this isn't nothing. That's an enormous amount of maintenance and costs associated with every individual camera.

Stephen Thiele (22:09):

And how much does the camera cost itself? I mean, I haven't seen those costs. Yeah,

Gavin Tighe (22:14):

I mean that's just, well, the city of Toronto spent over $200 million on all of their, which they don't break down, I don't think in any kind of public disclosure method to deal with a program to reduce speed. I think the best thing they've done is that they just block every lane of traffic so that the traffic's so bad. You can't go more than two kilometers an hour anyways. Put another bike lane in and that'll speed

Stephen Thiele (22:42):

Things up. Well, look, you're right, Devin. I mean, we're not here to incite people to vandalize public property. That's not a good thing. But no, absolutely. I think from right, from a political perspective though, you can understand where those opposed to speed cameras are trying to push back. And I guess they see this as the best way to let their voices be heard, but it costs money and you raised it earlier, is it the best solution if we want to protect people in zones that have schools like shouldn't we be having speed humps or speed bumps or other devices or other traffic kind of things that can be done to actually slow down traffic? Because I was talking to somebody, and really what you do is you know that the speed camera's there, you slow down for the 10 seconds, you see the speed camera and immediately you speed up again.

Gavin Tighe (23:47):

Yeah, I wonder if

Stephen Thiele (23:48):

Most drivers do

Gavin Tighe (23:49):

That. Look, the ticket that I'm talking about was I think dated some two to three weeks prior to when we got the ticket. So there's a total disconnect between the moment of speeding and then the actual ticket. So for two

Stephen Thiele (24:08):

To three weeks, it's not contemporaneous.

Gavin Tighe (24:10):

Well, for two to three weeks, if that's your usual route, you'd be blissfully driving at whatever speed, not realizing that you're going to get a ticket. So in all the signs in the world, I know they say, well, then they are well signed. I will give it them that. But I don't believe that it actually, it curtails for that momentary moment that you slow down for that moment. But I think quite frankly, people are probably more focused on that. I don't want to get a ticket than they are and actually paying attention to the road and whether or not people are running around, they're watching out for the speed cameras rather than for the pedestrians and just being alert with respect to everything that happen all the time unexpectedly when driving. So I think that there are huge issues with this, and I wonder if this is even constitutional in the sense that if you're charged with an offense by government, you should have the right to plead not guilty to that offense and have the government prove the case against you. And then the speed cameras, at least my experience, that fundamental democratic right, is not afforded to you. And again, I wonder, and what if I don't pay? What are they going to do about it?

Stephen Thiele (25:26):

I don't know. Well, you haven't paid, so we'll find out. Wait a minute, they're coming in. They're ticking me

Gavin Tighe (25:31):

Away letters. Exactly. I think that there's a lot of unanswered questions with respect to this. I think that I harken back and really going to show my age, but I recall that there was a similar debate over photo radar on highways a number of years ago where they'd have mobile vans parked around on 400 series highways in Ontario that would just churn out speeding tickets to people who were going over the speed limit. And those became a hot potato political issue, and they were banned. The next election was run on that platform and they didn't survive it. I wonder if the speed cameras will go the way of the photo radar bans.

Stephen Thiele (26:16):

It is just, to me, that's where, in my opinion, government gets too big and too large. We have to have our freedoms. Yes, people should not speed. And for the most part, I would say Gavin, most people don't speed around in their cars, certainly not deliberately or looking to run anybody over and going through school zones. From what I see, people are pretty responsible

Gavin Tighe (26:48):

And irresponsible people don't care if they get a speed

Stephen Thiele (26:50):

Camera,

Gavin Tighe (26:51):

Right? Exactly. Because probably it's not their car, right? Number one. And number two is they're driving recklessly anyways. You think if you have the forethought to say, gee, two, three weeks from now I'm going to get a letter in the mail that says I owe 80 bucks or a hundred bucks, I better slow down reckless. People don't think two to three weeks in advance. If they did, they wouldn't be reckless in the first

Stephen Thiele (27:16):

Place. I just think it's not a permanent solution because these speed cameras move all the time anyway, right? They're only, I think 150 in Toronto. I don't know if they're looking or wanting to put in more. There's now. Oh, I think

Gavin Tighe (27:29):

They are. I

Stephen Thiele (27:29):

Think that they, well, there's greater public debate though about this. Now, this issue, I know that one of the counselors, I think Councillor Perza has raised that they should cancel the program in Toronto. I think the response has been bigger signs, quite frankly. Gavin, I find the signs to be very small when they have these speed cameras put in place and they're on both

Gavin Tighe (27:52):

Sides. Do you to speed because they want your money,

Stephen Thiele (27:56):

They want your money,

Gavin Tighe (27:57):

That's it. They want your money. And the city of Toronto, like many municipalities, is addicted to revenue because they cannot stop spending. And ultimately, that's the reason. And this is a nice little syntax that they can tack on to the current regime in City Hall who has no love of motorized of automobiles. This is a great little

Stephen Thiele (28:28):

Syntax

Gavin Tighe (28:30):

And it works

Stephen Thiele (28:30):

Well, Gavin, it'll certainly be interesting to see how this develops. Now, given the emphasis that has been put on capturing the shadow, we figure the police investigation Premier Ford, they

Gavin Tighe (28:44):

Seek him here. They seek him here. Those Frenchy seek him everywhere. They don't catch him. The pimp nail of the speed ticket.

Stephen Thiele (28:51):

Well, if this guy is acting alone or this person, we don't know if it's a man or a woman. If they're acting alone, they're keeping pretty busy because as you say, their speed cameras knocked over and cut down all over the city. However,

Gavin Tighe (29:09):

Now that is a crime and

Stephen Thiele (29:11):

Someone should be the, it is a

Gavin Tighe (29:12):

Crime. Someone should be actually charged and have the ability to defend themselves with respect to that and know the case of the crown that they have to meet in the usual fashion that you know what has served Western democracy very well for a very long time. And when we start to depart from that, I don't know about you, stephen, but I get very, very nervous because I think that have faith in the state, but it's important that the state not get out of control. And one of the key controls of the state is the rule of law. And the rule of law means that the state has to prove the case against you and your presumed innocent until such time as they do. And this 1984 esque program takes all of that and throws it out the window in favor of, gee whiz, we want more free money, so let's go do a cash grab. That to me is my view of it. And I think that's the troubling part.

Stephen Thiele (30:11):

Gavin, I don't disagree, but obviously the cutting down of the speed cameras is a form of protest in some respects. And government has essentially put people in that position where they feel that angry or frustrated over this, that they're taking it out on the camera and committing an illegal act, which is unfortunate. What

Gavin Tighe (30:33):

Did the camera ever do

(30:44):

Anyway, stephen, a very interesting and heated discussion. I guess we have to wrap it up for today because kind of gone over our usual time limit. But first of all, thanks very much to everyone for listening. Please rate us if you can on any of the platforms that you may listen to. This on five star ratings are always appreciated, but if we don't deserve it, don't give it. We're more than happy to know the case we have to meet. So please send us some comments, criticisms. We're always looking for insightful views of this. Really appreciate this discussion, stephen. And always remember, if no one is above the law, then everyone is beneath it.