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With a municipal election looming, photo radar stands to be a talking point. Troy Pavlek believes the numbers may be a good place to start the discussion.

Pavlek, a 22-year-old software developer eyeing the Ward 11 council seat, has been busy digging through photo radar statistics obtained through access to information requests.

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“The first thing that you notice is that all photo radar tickets are sort of trending towards the centre,” he said, adding tickets for speeds between six and 10 km/h over the speed limit have levelled off following a huge jump about four years ago, a jump he attributes to more enforcement in school zones.

Tickets for speeds between 11 and 15 km/h over the limit, though, have steadily grown from 42 per cent of all tickets in 2014 to almost half of all tickets last year from January to the end of November.

He contends that photo radar has its merits.

“It should be a tool on our tool belt, but it should be the last tool. We should fight for engineering changes, education and then, if nothing else works, implement the photo radar,” he said.