Calgary Speeding Tickets: The crackdown is real and fines are soaring
Calgary police are serious about traffic enforcement, and you'll pay m
[CALGARY, AB] — In the first ten weeks of 2026, Calgary police issued 10,493 speeding tickets. That is not a slow quarter. That is a blitz.
Why the Pedal Is Off the Metal Right Now
As reported by Global News, the Calgary Police Service is running a hard crackdown on excessive speeding — and the numbers bear it out. Of those 10,493 tickets issued as of mid-March, 30% came from officers on the street. The rest came from photo radar and cameras.
This is not a random enforcement mood. The CPS Traffic Section is operating under the Joint Safer Mobility Plan (2024-2028) and the 2026 Traffic Safety Plan, the latter approved by the Calgary Police Commission in November 2025. The mandate is explicit: crack down on speed, impairment, and distraction.
And the context behind that mandate is grim.
2025 Was the Deadliest Year on Calgary Roads in a Decade
Calgary recorded 38 fatal collisions in 2025 — the highest count in ten years. Speed was a contributing factor in 15 of those deaths. Pedestrian fatalities hit 15, an 11-year high and a 225% year-over-year increase. Those are not statistics that stay in a policy document. They are the reason enforcement is now visibly, measurably different.
The City and CPS launched the "Drive to Zero" public awareness campaign in September 2025, following that pedestrian death spike. City Council also allocated $7.5 million in new pedestrian safety improvements late last year. The tickets are the enforcement arm of a broader strategy that has been building for months.
The Fine Just Got Heavier, Too
Alberta quietly made this crackdown more expensive in February 2026. The province announced a 50% increase in fines for careless driving, excessive speeding, racing, and stunting, effective March 2026. So if you are getting pulled over right now, you are not just dealing with last year's fine schedule.
There is also a budget angle worth knowing. Provincial restrictions on automated traffic enforcement that took effect April 1, 2025 stripped the City of roughly $28 million in annual photo radar revenue. City Council approved replacing those funds in the 2026 budget — meaning the fiscal pressure to run a lean enforcement operation is real, but the political pressure to actually make roads safer is equally real, and arguably louder right now.
What This Means If You Drive in Calgary
The math here is straightforward. More officers writing tickets. More cameras at high-risk intersections — the province approved restoring speed-on-green enforcement at five of them in Fall 2025. Higher fines per infraction. And a department that has a documented, council-approved mandate to keep this going through 2028.
The societal cost of collisions in Calgary hit an estimated $1.4 billion in 2024, according to the City's own Safer Mobility Plan Annual Report. That number tends to clarify why Vision Zero — the goal of eliminating traffic fatalities entirely — is not just a slogan on a City website.
Whether the tickets change driving culture in a city built around the car is the question nobody has a clean answer to yet.