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The bombshell report on ICBC’s financial crisis contains a long list of suggestions to avoid the massive rate hikes now looming for B.C. drivers.

Here’s one idea, buried on page 101 of the report: Operate the province’s existing red-light intersection cameras all day long, instead of just six hours a day.

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What’s that? You didn’t know the 140 cameras, currently deployed at the province’s most accident-prone intersections, only catch red-light-running drivers for 25 per cent of the day?

It’s true. For the other 18 hours of each day, reckless drivers run red lights with no fear of the automatic cameras snapping a picture of their licence plates and sending them a $167 ticket in the mail.

Why the heck are the cameras not switched on 24 hours a day? The answer is one of those classic examples of government incompetence.

It goes back to 1999, when the cameras were first installed. Back then, the cameras used rolls of film that had to be removed and developed in a darkroom.