There鈥檚 a sinking feeling in the gut when you pass a speed camera going a few kilometres an hour over. How much is my lead foot going to cost me?
It鈥檚 a question that has apparently been asked a few too many times for frustrated Torontonians, at least some of whom have taken matters into their own hands. Speed cameras across the city have been vandalized in recent months, including 16 in one night, and Ontario Premier Doug Ford called the cameras “nothing but a tax grab.”
It’s “not fair,” he said, for drivers to get tickets for going “five or 10 kilometres over.”
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Use the Star鈥檚 speed camera ticket calculator to see how much a ticket might cost you based on how fast you were driving.
How does the formula work?
Under Ontario鈥檚 Highway Traffic Act, the cost of a speeding ticket is determined by how fast over the limit you were going. In a community safety zone or school zone, you are charged a base penalty of $5 per kilometre between one and 19 km/h over the limit, $7.50 per kilometre from 20 to 29 km/h over, $12 per kilometre from 30 to 49 km/h over, and $19.50 per kilometre for 50 km/h or over.
The ticket also includes a provincial victim fine surcharge that increases with the base penalty.
Lastly, there is a set $8.25 fee for the authorities to access your name and address from your license plate.
How fast over the limit do you need to go to be charged?
It鈥檚 not clear. When Star columnist Jack Lakey asked the city how many tickets were issued from 2022 to 2024 for anywhere between one km/h over and five km/h over, the city said it is 鈥渦nable to disclose this level of detail as it would impact enforcement.鈥
Anecdotally, Lakey has said he received a speed camera ticket for going seven km/h over in 2024, and a counter clerk told him some people come in with tickets for going only one km/h over.
By analyzing 250 different locations across 海角社区官网from July 2020 and December 2022 and measuring speeds before and after cameras went up, the authors found the percentage of cars speeding dropped by 45 per cent.
Those findings are consistent with a 2022 report from SickKids and 海角社区官网Metropolitan University.
Mark Colley is a Toronto-based general assignment reporter for
the Star. Reach him via email: mcolley@thestar.ca
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