Photo radar here to stay: Quebec transport minister

Quebec's minister of transport, Robert Poti, said photo radars and red-light cameras have been effective at reducing road infractions, andtheir point is not to fatten the government purse.

"Since 2009,photo radars have beenstatistically proven," Potisaid in a radio interview on Radio-CanadaTuesday. "They have reduced speeding on average by 17 per cent, and we've seen a 80 per cent reduction in drivers running red lights."

Poti's comments came one day after announcing that four new red-light cameras and one new photo-radar camerawould be installed in Laval. Thatprompted media speculation that this was agovernment cash grab.

"The goal is not to make money," Poti said,"and any money that's made is used only for road safety. We're not using it to pay the debt."

New radars are being installed mostly in suburbs because they're the ones that asked for them, Poti said.

"We work with cities that asked us tohelp them reduce speeding," he said.

See the full map here.

The province recently invested in 37 radars and cameras, 18 of them mobile.

Poti said that a large portion of speeding infractions one-third of them in 2014 happen at construction sites. Photo radarwill also be used in these locations as education tools, he said.

"We have to remind people where there is greater risk of accidents, at construction sites."