Ministry officers get to use radar guns

TORONTO, ON — This spring the Ontario Ministry of Transportation will begin equipping its patrol vehicles with radar devices to help MTO officers better enforce the province’s speed limiter requirement.

Once MTO vehicles are equipped with radar, observing officers will be able to clock commercial motor vehicles and will be able to charge any driver traveling at 115 km/h or greater for violating the province’s speed limiter law, which requires most trucks to have a functioning speed limit system set at 105 km/h. The radar reading will be used as evidence that the speed limiter is not functioning under the “deeming provision” outlined in Sec. 68.1 of the Highway Traffic Act. However, officers will not lay a tampering charge strictly based on the radar reading.

MTO told the Ontario Trucking Association that it’s currently in the process of buying the radar units as part of a pilot program.

Multiple teams of officers are expected to begin training on the devices this April. Each region will be issued a radar unit and officers will primarily focus their enforcement on major highways with speed limits of 100 km/h.

All MTO enforcement officers will also be trained and begin to enforce specific moving violations under the Highway Traffic Act related to large commercial motor vehicles.

Officers will start to lay charges such as improper lane change, failure to obey traffic signals etc, but speeding violations will not be included in this training and speeding offences will continue to be the responsibility of the police.


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