Cameras snap 243k offences

Almost one-quarter of million people have been monitored illegal using cellphones while driving and not wearing seatbelts.

That’s the headline result of a six-month trial of safety cameras in Auckland carried out by Waka Kotahi – the first of its kind in New Zealand.

The transport agency undertook the trial across three locations in Tamaki Makaurau last year to help quantify the problem, and to test the ability of the cameras to accurately detect such behaviour.

The results show that across the test sites over the six-month period that one-in-42 drivers or 2.4 per cent were detected illegally using mobile phones, while one-in-95 or one per cent of vehicles had occupants not wearing seatbelts.

The total number of potential offences recorded over the full trial period was 242,959. 

Tara Macmillan, general manager – regulatory transformation and system, says the trial represents the first steps to collecting better evidence on the scale of these road issues and the role of safety cameras in addressing them.

“We’re taking a pragmatic approach to looking at how this technology can be introduced most effectively, including how automated detection could work alongside other strategies,” she says.

“Safety cameras and automated detection technology are potentially important tools for broader future use. They are just one way that we can keep people safe by reducing deaths and serious injuries on our roads. 

“We need everyone making safe choices, in safe vehicles, on safe roads, travelling at safe speeds to achieve our vision of an Aotearoa where no one is killed or seriously injured on our roads.” 

The findings of the trial will inform future decisions on regulatory changes that would be needed to enable the use of safety cameras to enforce cellphone and seatbelt offences, which is currently not permitted under the Land Transport Act.