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Calgary police have seen an increase in the number of drivers running red lights, saying thousands of tickets have been issued to motorists over the past few years.
According to police, those tickets were only from red light cameras and they’ve caught more than 60,000 vehicles since 2024. Of those, around 8,400 occurred between Jan. 1 and May 31 of this year.
“Red lights are there for people safety,” says Staff Sgt Andy Woodward with the Calgary police traffic unit. “When you approach a red light or you’re approaching a set of traffic lights start, reduce your speed and anticipate that light is probably going to change.”
Staff Sgt. Woodward says while their officers who are out patrolling the street do see drivers running red lights, these days they’re mostly seeing it through dashcam videos.
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He also says catching drivers running red lights is difficult for police, so they are relying on drivers to obey the rules of the road.
“We’re asking the public to be responsible. You’re driving your car, you pass the driving test, and you’ve got to obey the rules of the road … for a reason,” he says.
“They’re there for your safety and safety of other road users.”
Dashcam videos of motorists running red lights are uploaded daily to a Facebook group called Bad Calgary Drivers, showing everything from near misses with pedestrians to drivers running a red light several seconds after the signal had already changed.
Jacob Lamb is an assistant professor in the department of civil engineering at the University of Calgary. He says while the city has 57 active cameras, they cover less than five per cent of the city’s intersections.
“We hope that those ones have been chosen because of their high severity of the collisions or a history rate, but if we actually want to dissuade this behaviour, we should have these cameras nearly, at least nearly every intersection,” he says.
Police say a ticket for running a red light at an intersection with an enforcement camera will cost you $405.
© 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
