The intersection of Springfield where Benvoulin meets Dilworth is the worst in the city for red-light running.

(JOHN MCDONALD / iNFOnews.ca)

THOMSON-OKANAGAN - There’s no question drivers run red lights on the highways and byways of the Southern Interior but compared to the Lower Mainland, they’re amateurs.

A story this week in the Vancouver Sun shows the worst 25 intersections for red-light running out of the 140 intersections where ICBC operates red-light cameras account for more than half of all the 93,000 tickets issued from 2012 to 2014.

The closest an Interior intersection comes to making that list is number 48, the intersection of Dilworth Drive and Springfield Road in Kelowna. That intersection accounted for 665 violations on a vehicle count of 6.5 million, which translates into a rate of 10.2 tickets per 100,000 cars.

As a comparison, the worst intersection in B.C. is that of Georgia and Denman Streets in downtown Vancouver, where 3,902 drivers were ticketed based on a vehicle count of 26.2 million.

Kelowna also holds the 62nd spot at Gordon Drive and Harvey Avenue where 500 red-light runners where issued $167 tickets over the same time period. The vehicle count is much higher here, with 23.6 million cars passing through but the ticket rate is only 2.1 per 100,000.

Kamloops and Vernon come in at 95 and 111 respectively on the offenders list. Some 280 drivers who blew the red at Fortune Drive and 8 Street were issued a ticket. In Vernon, Highway. 97 and 43 Avenue is the red-light hotspot with 202 tickets.

Penticton doesn’t even have a red-light camera, while there is only one each in Kamloops and Vernon and five in Kelowna.

Kelowna rounds out the rest of the list with three more intersections, all on Hwy. 97. Those are Spall Road (115th with 182 tickets) Cooper Road (120th with 174) and Banks Road (123rd with 165).

ICBC spokeswoman Leslie cautioned against making a direct comparison with the Lower Mainland but said in general, the higher the traffic volume, the more violations that will occur.

“Lower ticket volumes are primarily located outside the Lower Mainland, which also have lower traffic volumes in general,” she says. “Weather can also impact the number of red-light violations, specifically snow covering the road lines that impacts our ability to issue tickets.”

ICBC says each camera operates in rotation for just six hours a day, which can also skew the numbers. An ICBC pilot project is testing whether better compliance could be achieved if the cameras are run for longer periods.

To contact the reporter for this story, email John McDonald at jmcdonald@infonews.ca or call 250-808-0143. To contact the editor, email mjones@infonews.ca or call 250-718-2724.

News from © iNFOnews, 2015