Star article from 2 months ago
Are speed cameras ticketing drivers for less than 10 km/h over the posted limit? Here’s what the city said — now we want to hear from you
How many kilometres above the speed limit is enough for a ticket?
For police officers conducting radar speed enforcement, it’s highly unlikely they’d ticket a driver for doing five kilometres an hour or less above the posted limit, and often give drivers a break if they haven’t exceeded 10 km/h over.
But the threshold for some of Toronto’s stationary speed cameras seems to be much lower. In some locations, even one km/h over the limit appears to be enough to net drivers a nasty surprise in the form of a ticket and fine.
How do I know this? Not because the city admitted to it. But a Toronto police officer and a counter clerk at an office where tickets can be paid told me so.
Speed cameras are often in the news lately, largely due to ongoing assaults on the infamous Parkside Drive camera, which has been chopped down six times in eight months. It is the most lucrative of Toronto’s cameras, so far netting the city about $7 million in fines from more than 66,000 tickets since 2022.
My friend and colleague Dave Rider reported in the Star last weekend that Toronto’s 150 speed cameras have been vandalized 484 times so far in 2025, an average of more than 2.5 incidents per day.
That’s an outsized amount of anger. Could part of the cause of such profound enmity be the very low threshold to trigger a ticket?
I’ve had a few myself — including one in 2024 for 7 km/h over — and recently went to an office where fines can be paid to clear them. I got there shortly after 4 p.m. and asked a Toronto police officer on security duty in the lobby for directions.
He said they wouldn’t process my tickets after 4 p.m. and that I’d have to come back, but earlier in the day. We started chatting — I’ve always found most police to be friendly — and I mentioned to him that the speed cameras are deadly efficient.
“They’re not just efficient, they’re a f——— scam,” he told me emphatically, a second cop working with him nodding in agreement.
That got my attention.
He said he regularly talks to drivers who come to the office to pay fines for just a few kilometres over the limit, and sometimes for just one kilometre over.
I went back the next day to settle up. While talking to the counter clerk who processed my payments, I told her what the cop had told me and asked if she takes payments from people busted for driving just a few kilometres over the limit.
Every day, she said.
Even one kilometre over? Yes, she said, adding that some people are hopping mad about it.
No wonder they need two cops for security.
So I sent a note to the city’s communications staff requesting confirmation of what I had learned. Specifically, I asked how many tickets were issued in 2022, 2023 and 2024 for anywhere from 5 km/h over to one km/h over.
Here’s the reply: “The city of Toronto is unable to disclose this level of detail as it would impact enforcement.”
Not only would they not provide any information on the specific number of tickets, they refused to confirm that any tickets had been issued for such infractions.
That begged a supplementary question. I asked them to “please tell me how disclosure of the number of tickets issued for driving one, two or three kilometres per hour over the speed limit would impact enforcement?”
The response came five days later. “The city of Toronto is unable to provide data on the lower speeds as it would compromise the investigative techniques and procedures used in law enforcement.”
Is that dodgy or what?
