Speed cameras for safety

This article by Brian Gibbons, chief executive of the New Zealand Automobile Association, is from the latest addition of its Directions magazine. One of the unfortunate consequences of the Christmas holiday change to the police’s speed enforcement tolerance is the suspicion in some quarters that it’s more about Crown revenue than safety. This is an accusation the police are no doubt tired of hearing. They quite rightly point out the $70 million in traffic-ticket revenue goes to the government’s consolidated fund and has nothing to do with the police’s $300m operating budget. Still, many police officers favour replacing monetary fines with demerit points, with the consequence of repeated road-safety infringements being the loss of the right to use a vehicle. We must be mindful of what we are trying to achieve. Are we trying to issue tickets as a measure of success, or are we trying to achieve safe speeds? This is where it seems some of those in authority have their wires crossed. They claim issuing tickets isn’t the objective but contradict themselves by their actions. Perhaps this is best illustrated with an example. In leading road-safety nations – such as Britain, Sweden, the Netherlands and Australia – drivers are warned with a “speed camera ahead” sign a few hundred metres ahead of fixed-speed cameras. The idea is to give people a chance to check and, if necessary, reduce speed to the limit because there’s a high-risk area ahead. Those who don’t heed the warning get a ticket almost automatically.

If the important thing is that people drive at safe speeds in high-risk areas, then there’s no reason not to warn them. If the important thing is ticketing and raising income from fines, you wouldn’t warn them. When you think about it, every speed-camera ticket issued represents a failure to protect people in the high-risk area the fixed-speed camera was in.

Some argue that if drivers are warned they will slow down until they see the speed camera, and then speed up again. My response is at least they slowed down to a safer speed in the hazard area – and there’s nothing preventing the authorities from reinforcing the fixed camera from time to time with speed-camera vans or highway patrol cars up the road. By not signalling the presence of a camera, our authorities run the risk of issuing a ticket but not preventing the speed accident the fixed camera was placed to prevent. The AA has no problem with mobile speed cameras operating “anytime, anywhere”. The object of those cameras is to reinforce limits all over the country. But the object of the 60 new, fixed, digital speed cameras – which don’t flash when they take pictures – is to prevent injury and death in specific places, not to issue tickets. We see no reason why the first time a driver knows they should have slowed down is when a ticket arrives in the mail some weeks later. That will not make high-risk areas safer. If prevention of road trauma is the first objective and government income is not the object, we think putting up a $100 sign to warn drivers to slow down or be ticketed by a fixed-speed camera ahead makes perfect sense. It’s also what other countries in the world do.