If you’re going one kilometre an hour over the limit, police could hand you a ticket – but they probably won’t.
“While I can pretty much guarantee you that you’re not going to get a ticket for two or three kilometres an hour over, you really have to expect a ticket any time you’re speeding,” said Sean Shapiro, a road safety consultant and a retired Toronto traffic cop. “If you don’t get one, you’re lucky – because you’re breaking the law.”
Generally, it’s up to individual officers to decide which drivers to pull over and when to give out tickets, Shapiro said.
“We’re not mandated. We don’t have to pull over everyone breaking the law. [So] every officer will have their own way of dealing with it,” he said. “Historically, if I was in a [60-kilometre-an-hour] zone, I would pull you over if you were 15 over and I would charge you the full amount. If you were 10 over, I might pull you over and have a conversation.”
But if Shapiro was on a road packed with speeders, he might focus only on the fastest drivers.
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“I might be only stopping people going 20 kilometres an hour over because there are so many people speeding,” Shapiro said. “The problem is that it really depends on what’s happening. If I was in a 30 [kilometre-an-hour] zone, I’d pull you over for 10 over and charge you. Five over might get you a warning.”
There are simply not enough police officers to pull over every speeder, he said.
“I know some officers, they’re looking for all the stunt drivers,” he said. “They’re only pulling people over if they’re 40 or 50 [kilometres an hour] over the limit.”
We checked with other provinces. The laws all say that you can get a ticket for going above the posted limit, period.
In fact, six jurisdictions – Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Prince Edward Island and the Northwest Territories – increase the fine for each kilometre an hour that you’re going over the speed limit.
“You’re very unlikely to get a ticket for being a few kilometres an hour over the limit, but if you want to be sure … don’t speed,” Corporal Michael McLaughlin, a spokesman for B.C. Highway Patrol, said in an e-mail.
If roads are slippery or if there’s poor visibility, you could get a speeding ticket even if you’re going under the speed limit, McLaughlin said.
“Speed limits are established based on ideal weather and lighting conditions, McLaughlin said. “So when it’s snowing, raining, at night … you are legally obligated to slow down to speeds that may be well below the speed limit.”
Everybody’s doing it?
There are long-standing myths about situations where police can’t or won’t issue speeding tickets, police said. For instance, some drivers think they won’t get a ticket if they’re behind a car that’s also speeding.
But following someone who’s breaking the law doesn’t give you a pass for breaking it too, McLaughlin said.
“Yes, you can get a ticket [for speeding behind another speeder],” McLaughlin said. “[We are] under no obligation to pull over a particular speeder.”
While police radar might target the speeder in front of you and may not even see you, there’s “no guarantee,” Shapiro said.
“It could just be your lucky day that you’re in the back of a pack of six and you’re the one I pull over,” Shapiro said.
Also, you can get a speeding ticket even if other drivers are going faster than you.
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“If you’re speeding, you’re speeding, and it does not matter if someone else is speeding too,” McLaughlin said.
While police will usually target the most reckless driver they can see, they’re “balancing the risk” to other drivers on the road when they decide whom to pull over, McLaughlin said.
“If we decide that you are the safest [for officers and other vehicles on the road] speeder to pull over, you could well get a ticket even when someone else was slightly faster,” McLaughlin said.
Any time you’re speeding, you’re risking a lot more than a ticket, Shapiro said.
In 2022, the most recent year with numbers available, speed was a factor in 29.1 per cent of 1,931 deaths on Canadian roads, according to Transport Canada. That’s about 560 lives.
According to the Traffic Injury Research Foundation, an Ottawa-based non-profit, speeding increases both the number and severity of crashes.
Driving just 10 kilometres an hour above the speed limit more than doubles crash risk. Driving 20 kilometres an hour above the limit increases the risk of a crash by up to six times.
“I know it’s clichéd to say this as a cop, but don’t speed,” Shapiro said. “We have deaths on the road because people are speeding.”
Have a driving question? Send it to globedrive@globeandmail.com and put ‘Driving Concerns’ in your subject line. Emails without the correct subject line may not be answered. Canada’s a big place, so let us know where you are so we can find the answer for your city and province.