Newfoundland and Labrador鈥檚 provincial government is promising to roll out speed cameras on provincial highways, after a pilot program last summer caught thousands of speeders.

A three-month pilot program, using just two cameras in two Newfoundland communities, caught more than 94,000 vehicles breaking the law, according to Sarah Stoodley, the Minister of Digital Government and Service NL.

Cameras captured 94,000 instances of a vehicle travelling more than 11 km/h faster than the posted legal limit, Stoodley said, and a quarter of those instances saw the driver moving more than 20 km/h faster than the legal limit.

鈥淲hich is quite shocking,鈥� Stoodley said, 鈥淐onsidering we only have 520,000 people in Newfoundland and Labrador.鈥�

鈥淭hese are on residential streets with speed limits of 40 or 50 km/h, some of them in school zones. So speeding is a problem.鈥�

None of the offending drivers caught last summer received a fine 鈥� only a warning letter. But Stoodley said instituting a system to levy fines against speeding drivers is now one of her top priorities.

鈥淧eople are concerned with speeding in their neighbourhoods,鈥� she said. 鈥淎 lot of people are looking for anything that will reduce speeds.鈥�

The high number of speeders didn鈥檛 shock driving instructor Paul Prowse, who has been teaching others how to drive for decades in St. John鈥檚.

鈥淲hat I try to tell people to do and how to drive, according to the rules of the road and the Highway Traffic Act, 95 per cent of what's on the street are not doing it,鈥� he said.

Prowse said he doesn鈥檛 believe Newfoundlanders and Labradorians are particularly aggressive 鈥� he just thinks people get too caught up in other things when they鈥檙e on the road.

鈥淵ou're rushing home, you're trying to put supper together, feed the kids, get the kids to their soccer, to their baseball, to their dance, to wherever it is the kids got to go,鈥� he said. 鈥淓verybody is in a rush.鈥�

鈥淭he city is becoming so fast, I鈥檝e noticed it in the past 15 years, since the malls are open on Sundays now.鈥�

While Prowse believed the warnings that came from the speed cameras 鈥� both the flashing numbers on the signs and the letters in the mail 鈥� would help, he鈥檚 convinced now that fines will do the trick.

So many vehicles broke the law during the pilot project that government staff had a hard time writing all the notices, Stoodley said.

She鈥檚 wary of a system where thousands of new highway traffic act violations can be appealed to the courts, so she鈥檚 working on a way to levy fines that won鈥檛 be so resource intensive.

鈥淭he approach that I鈥檓 hoping to bring forward will allow us to deliver a financial penalty for excessive speeding without bothering the justice system,鈥� she said. 鈥淚 know other provinces are look at [that] as well.鈥�

Stoodley said whatever revenue the speed camera program raises will go into the general pot for the provincial government, but she鈥檚 hoping it doesn鈥檛 raise very much.

Instead, she wants people to slow down so they don鈥檛 get fined at all.

鈥淥ur goal is to curb speeding.鈥�