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Speed cameras to be painted bright, signposted

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Thu, 15 Sep 2011 7:33a.m. UPDATED: 11:28AM

About 627,000 tickets were issued in 2010

About 627,000 tickets were issued in 2010

Speed cameras are set to be brightly painted and signposted so drivers know where to slow down, in a trial to be tested by road safety authorities.

The Automobile Association says it has been in discussions with police and the New Zealand Transport Agency to show drivers where some fixed cameras are located.

The trial aims to slow vehicles down more effectively on dangerous stretches of road, said AA motoring affairs general manager Mike Noon.

New figures show 627,000 speed camera tickets were issued in 2010, almost double 2009's total and more than 200,000 above the average across the four years before that.

Police are on track to set a new record again this year, with 200,000 tickets issued by the country's 55 speed cameras between January and April.

Mr Noon says while the AA supports speed cameras, the best kind are those that don't issue thousands of tickets.

He says most other western countries, including Australia, signpost their cameras and it's time New Zealand does the same.

"What we want is for a sign to go up before that area and for the cameras themselves to be brightly painted so that drivers know they're in a dangerous area and they slow down," Mr Noon says.

"That way cameras aren't issuing all of these tickets and people are driving far more safely instead of speeding through obliviously."

The trial is supported by police and will likely begin "very soon".

Police have defended the new statistics, with national road policing manager Superintendent Paula Rose telling Radio New Zealand the tickets were there for road safety, not to generate revenue.

She said the increase was due to a roll out of faster digital cameras and a tougher stance on speeding over holiday periods.

NZN

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Comments

15 Sep 2011 03:43p.m.

Es wrote:

I just don't get it when people start talking about revenue gathering. If you don't want to pay fine don't speed. I bet these people would be the first to scream and shout about how the police must do more if a speeding driver didn't manage to stop in time and knocked their kid.

15 Sep 2011 01:14p.m.

Martin wrote:

Just revenue gathering nothing about safety at all. If Paula and her team of time wasters really cared about road safety they would use any speeding ticket money on video cameras - recording and getting dangerous drivers off the road. Tickets and people requesting verification of speed camera calibration and contesting fines wastes court and police resources, better spent on being "caught on tape" and if contested a quick and cost effective trial.

15 Sep 2011 12:52p.m.

Big D wrote:

So says national road policing manager Superintendent Paula Rose, it is not revenue gathering. An retired ex senior officer said to me some years back that that type of comment is BULLSHIT. The police are only being employed as revenue gathers and in the position they hold, where do we stand? He said a lot of officers do not like it but because of their employment, they have no choice but to write the tickets. They felt they had more important work to do. One local incident and the Police were called. They did not have a Patrol handy at the moment, would have to wait until one was free, but just along the road was a car watching for speeding traffic. What was more important? Are they Police or what? When this was pointed out in another call to hurry them along, the reply was that they were the traffic section, but it certainly gave them a hurry up as this car was on the scene in minutes. As for over the speed limit and incorrect speedo's, our late model car when reading 50 is shown as only doing 47/48 by GPS. At 100 on the GPS, our reading is anywhere up to 105. No wonder when on the open road we get stares when travelling at the speed limit as shown on the speedo and get overtaken. Someone mentioned speed coming off a hill. We have an area that used to be heavily camerawatched as all the locals knew it and we kept watch on our speed. One afternoon several of us at the same period of time all received speeding notices as we were caught in the area, no one saw the camera car, so where did he hide? Must have been hidden as NO ONE saw it. And our speed was unintentional. When watching for other traffic and children, you do not always keep watching the speedo.

15 Sep 2011 11:39a.m.

Richard wrote:

Couldn't they start focussing on other forms of dangerous driving. I would like to see Police targeting people who follow so close that you can't see their bonnet. There must be a way to do it using unmarked cars with rear facing cameras.

15 Sep 2011 11:30a.m.

RolanTheRat wrote:

So will someone ask the question "what will the money be spent on.627,000 tickets say an average of $60 per ticket=$37,620,000 or more.with so many cuts where is this going.

15 Sep 2011 10:25a.m.

Peter wrote:

Does Paula really think she can get the public to beleive this isn't about revenue gathering, we are not that stupid, really Paula we aren't. We see that every weekend when there are going to be more vehicles on the road the tolerance goes down 5km/k, but wait!!! thats all about road safety, honest it is, this would make a great Tui add "Police lower speed tolerance to keep us safer on the roads" Yer rite.......

15 Sep 2011 10:24a.m.

Neil wrote:

So what's the real story behind this. They issued double the number of tickets - fine but..... How many were on the open road, how many on suburban roads, how many were in the catergory under 5km over 6km - 10km over 11km - 15km over etc. And then compare each of these with last year This is nothing dressed up as a story - we call them space fillers....

15 Sep 2011 10:09a.m.

Marky wrote:

were there less crashes?? or were the police monitoring the roads where its relitivley safe to travel above the limit? Its easy to catch ppl speeding on open straight roads, but they probably were not going to crash. Police should be monitoring roads beside schools and in built up areas. less people speed there but people are much more likely to die when they do. I want my taxes to be used to keep people safe, not issue the maximum number of tickets

15 Sep 2011 09:43a.m.

Jess wrote:

Not surprising when you can get a ticket for going 55kms in a 50km zone!!

15 Sep 2011 09:39a.m.

Marty wrote:

Mo money mo money mo money. Thats where they were while the rest of the population was being raped, invaded, pillaged and proprty being trashed and stolen. Speed does kill however the truth is it is high excess speed, too fast for corners, racing and yes we are not man drivers. The woman drivers (Especially those of you in your high centre of gravity "SUV's" zipping past and cornering hard with the baby on board signs) too. Some of us can't afford a flash car and the speedo is not accurate enough for 5km limit. 10km yes and a warning and record made if the vehicle is constantly traveling at 8km or so over the speed limit. Mo money mo monjey mo money.