(Quebec) With parents mobilizing to demand more safety for active travel in schools, Secretary of Transportation Geneviève Guilbault promises to unveil an “enhanced action plan” on road safety that will “make a place important” for photo radar.
Posted at 5:09 p.m
During Tuesday’s first Question Time of the year in Quebec City, Liberal MP for Montreal’s Acadie Riding André Albert Morin asked Ms Guilbault if she had a plan to prevent other tragedies, such as the death of Mariia Fleckenkovska, a minor Girl mowed down by a motorist on her way to school in December.
“These cases happen too often. Our children are at risk near school areas. And yet there are solutions, notably photoradar, to obviously urge motorists to reduce their speed,” argued Mr Morin.
Ms Guilbault replied that there is already a road safety prevention strategy 2021-2025 led by the Société de l’assurance automobile du Québec (SAAQ), but that it needs to be improved. “The MP is right, more needs to be done,” she said.
“We will arrive very soon with an improved plan in which photoradar will have an important place, but will not be the only measure we will implement,” Ms Guilbault added. Photoradar is one of the elements [mais] This isn’t the only one. Repression, yes, but it always takes a lot of prevention and awareness at the same time. »
The Minister of Transport then recalled that Quebec already has 54 photoradar systems, 30 of which are fixed and 24 mobile, and that they can be installed in schools or in “accident risk” zones.
Mandatory Ministerial Regulation
While the city is seeing an increase in pedestrians seriously injured in traffic accidents on its territory, La Presse reported Monday that the City of Montreal has submitted a project to the Department of Transportation (MTQ) to install photoradar in densely populated neighborhoods. Currently, a municipality has to get permission from the ministry to use photo radar outside of a school area.
“Any potential site must be submitted to us for approval and be the subject of a ministerial decree. The municipalities cannot decide tomorrow morning: I will put a mobile photo radar here and there because I feel like it,” explained MTQ spokesman Nicolas Vigneault. “Cities can, however, install photoradar in a school district without ministerial regulation,” he said.
In an interview with La Presse, professor at the National Institute for Scientific Research Marie-Soleil Cloutier also recalled that “the studies are clear: photoradar reduces speed and collisions”.