My sibling recently borrowed my vehicle while visiting us from out of town. Soon after, I got a $93.25 speeding ticket in the mail. It looks like my sibling was going 54 kilometres an hour in a 40-kilometre-an-hour zone – so 14 kilometres an hour over the limit. It was on a Sunday just before 5 p.m. so there was no school in session. The fine was $70, plus there was a $15 provincial victim surcharge and an $8.25 licence plate access fee. How is this all calculated? This feels like a big cash grab, especially considering the extra fees. – WB, Toronto
Whether you’re caught speeding by a camera or a cop in Ontario, the fines are the same – and they’re set by the province.
Ontario is one of six places in Canada – along with Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Prince Edward Island and the Northwest Territories – that increases the fine for each kilometre per hour that you’re over the speed limit.
How much over the speed limit can I go before getting a photo radar ticket?
In Ontario, the standard speeding fine is $2.50 per kilometre if you’re going up to 19 kilometres over the speed limit. That increases the faster you go. So, it’s $3.75 per kilometre if you’re 20 to 29 kilometres an hour over and $6 per kilometre if you’re 30 to 49 kilometres an hour over.
Those double in school zones, community safety zones and construction zones if workers are there.
In Ontario, photo radar, which was introduced by Premier Doug Ford’s government in 2019, is limited to school and community safety zones.
Because fines in those zones are doubled, photo radar fines start at $5 per kilometre and go up to $7.50 a kilometre if you’re 20 to 29 kilometres an hour over and $12 per kilometre if you’re 30 to 49 kilometres an hour over.
The province also adds a victim fine surcharge, which funds programs for victims of crime, to all traffic tickets, including photo radar tickets and speeding tickets handed out by an officer. That surcharge starts at $10 and goes up as the amount of the fine increases.
Plus, for some tickets, including photo radar and speed camera tickets, the province adds a fixed $8.25 fee for looking up your licence plate number.
We asked the province about those fees and didn’t receive a response. The city of Toronto said those two fees go directly to the province, not to the city.
How much could a speed camera ticket cost you? For instance, if you’re going 20 kilometres over the limit – so, 60 in a 40 zone – you would get a ticket for $183.25. That’s a $150 fine and $33.25 in fees. But if you’re only going 11 kilometres an hour over the limit, that ticket would be $78.25 – a $55 fine and $23.25 in fees.
Vehicles pass a sign advising drivers of an upcoming speed camera in Toronto, on Wednesday, Sept. 24, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sammy KoganSammy Kogan/The Canadian Press
Photo finished?
Last week, Ford announced he will be outlawing speed cameras in Ontario, claiming that the cameras issued tickets at speeds that officers wouldn’t.
But, like in other provinces, police in Ontario are allowed to issue tickets for any speed over the limit.
Cities haven’t publicly shared the trigger speed for speed cameras because they say they don’t want drivers to speed at all. But Pamela Fuselli, chief executive officer of Parachute, a non-profit organization that focuses on injury prevention, said she’s heard from some Ontario cities that it’s at least 10 to 12 kilometres an hour above the speed limit.
“People are not getting [photo radar] tickets for four, five or six kilometres an hour over the posted limit,” she said. “I’ve spoken to various municipalities who say that’s not possible.”
While police officers hand regular speeding tickets to the driver, photo radar tickets are sent in the mail to the car’s registered owner.
Because they can’t prove the owner was driving, the tickets don’t come with demerit points, they don’t end up on your driving record and, unlike regular speeding tickets, they don’t affect insurance rates. You can also dispute them.
Multiple studies around the world show that speed cameras make roads safer by reducing speeding and serious collisions. A recent study by Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children and Toronto Metropolitan University found that speed cameras in Toronto reduced the number of speeders in school zones by 45 per cent.
“There’s no dispute that automated speed enforcement works,” Fuselli said, adding that it has been widely used in many other countries for decades. “In Australia, if they go a couple of kilometres above the limit, they expect to get caught [so people slow down].”
A recent survey from the Canadian Automobile Association (CAA) found that 73 per cent of Ontario respondents said they slow down when approaching a speed camera and 52 per cent said they don’t immediately speed up once they’re out of the camera’s range.
In that survey, 73 per cent of respondents thought speed cameras were a good idea in certain areas.
There’s solid evidence that even speeding just a few kilometres an hour above the speed limit can increase crashes, Fuselli said.
“For every 1.6 kilometres an hour over the posted limit, collisions go up by 5 per cent,” she said. “A pedestrian hit at 50 kilometres an hour is six times more likely to be killed than a pedestrian hit at 30 kilometres an hour. There’s no dispute about that.”
The top speed that Toronto cameras recorded last year was 188 kilometres an hour in a 50 zone.
In Toronto, the cameras are in places where the speed limit is in effect 24 hours a day, whether school is in session or not, city spokeswoman Kate Lear said in an e-mail.
More transparency needed?
Ford and other critics of speed cameras call them a cash grab.
Toronto issued about $40-million in speed camera fines last year, and, so far this year, it has issued more than $45 million.
Lear said proceeds from the fines go to various city programs, including road safety.
Parachute’s Fuselli thinks photo radar might have greater public acceptance if cities shared the speed over the limit that triggers cameras or if the fines collected were used mainly for road safety programs.
“I think some cooler heads need to prevail and really look at the benefits of automated speed enforcement, and not just make a knee-jerk decision that bans it altogether,” she said. “It’s not like we’re asking drivers to do something that they have no control over – it’s your foot on the gas pedal.”
Ford has suggested cities use traffic calming measures, including roundabouts, speed bumps and curb extensions to lower speeds instead of mailing out photo radar tickets.
But there will be drivers who speed despite those measures, which cities are already using, she said.
“It’s not like cities are only using [speed cameras] and none of these other things,” she said. “What’s the point of posting a maximum speed limit if you’re not going to enforce it?”
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.