Vic Speed Cameras...an update

[Smitty]

from THE Bulletin mag.....
interesting stuff...long......

HOCUS FOCUS



Victoria's hidden speed cameras may be doing a wonderful job of reducing the death toll, but revelations that they may be faulty and allegations that it is all just about revenue-raising can only undermine the public's confidence in the system. Julie-Anne Davies investigates.

It all started with one woman and her clapped-out, old Datsun 120Y. When Melbourne student Vanessa Bridges was pinged for speeding by one of Victoria's secret speed cameras as she tootled out of town one wintry day last July, no one could have guessed the political debacle that would follow. When Bridges got the fine in the mail, she couldn't believe it; not only had she copped a $430 ticket but she had lost eight demerit points and her licence had been cancelled for one year. She had been clocked by the camera at 158km/h.

But the camera was wrong; the 28-year-old Datsun couldn't do 110km/h without threatening to explode. It was the first public evidence that something was awry with the speed cameras secreted around Melbourne. The Bracks government's controversial and covert war on speed took a direct hit, sullying Victoria's stunning recent successes in reducing its road toll at a rate that had left the rest of the country eating its dust.

"I remember going into town to view the film of me supposedly fanging along at close to 160km/h and turning to the officer and saying: 'Yes, that is my car but no way was it doing that speed'," Bridges recalls. "The woman shrugged and said: 'You're postponing the inevitable, pay up and do the time'."

She didn't and the rest is history. Fixed cameras on a major artery out of town were found to be faulty, forcing the government to waive fines or pay compensation totalling almost $30m to 130,000 motorists. But the government is not apologising for its strategy of pinging speeding drivers without fear, favour or, most controversially, prior warning.

Depending on your point of view, Victoria may well be the most radical place in the world to be a motorist. It is also the safest place in Australia to drive. On July 1, the rest of the world will watch with interest when Victorian police begin random drug-testing motorists for methamphetamines and cannabis. Victoria was the first jurisdiction in the world to introduce compulsory seatbelts, only the second internationally to bring in random breath-testing and, more recently, the first state in the world to introduce a covert speed camera system. New red-light speed cameras – again the first in Australia – are about to be installed; motorists will wear a double fine if they run a red light while speeding.

Victoria is the stand-out state if you're talking real change, says Chris Brooks from the Australian Transport Safety Bureau. "Since mid-2002, there has been a 30% drop in their road toll, in marked contrast with the rest of Australia, where the figures have stayed much the same." And it is easy to understand why, Brooks says. The Bracks government declared war on speeding motorists in 2001, introducing a tranche of tough new measures under the banner "Arrive Alive". Its target was a 20% reduction of the road toll by 2007.

In Victoria, it is perfectly legal to spy on motorists, take their photos in secret and then hit them with a fine or confiscate their licence. The nationally accepted practice of police applying a 10% tolerance to speeding motorists was abandoned, as was the fair-play practice of not placing speed cameras at the bottom of hills or other sites where it was difficult to slow down. In addition, the urban speed limit was cut from 60km/h to 50km/h.

Some say it is a cynical revenue-raising exercise – the state government is expecting $233m from police fines this financial year and a whopping $350m next year, much of this from traffic offences – while others claim the government's "anywhere, anytime" approach to speeding is saving lives.

One of the most persistent criticisms is that the covert approach has damaged the relationship between the citizens of Victoria and their police force. However, Premier Steve Bracks and the police point to the scoreboard as proof that their controversial strategy is working – something even their harshest critics find difficult to dispute. The road toll last year was 330, the lowest on record. The biggest drop was in pedestrian deaths, down by 58%. But the changes have all been in the city; the country road toll hasn't moved since 1998.

"We've been aggressive and I don't apologise for it," says Bob Hastings, Assistant Commissioner (Traffic) Victoria Police. "There are more people alive and fewer people injured and, no, I don't think our relationship with the community has been damaged.

"When you are leading-edge, sometimes you have to endure the consequences and that is what we are doing."

Terry Mulder, the state opposition's transport spokesman, believes the issue will ultimately cost the Bracks government votes because it has crossed the precarious divide between responsible road safety policy and cynical revenue raising. "Speed cameras have their place but this government has taken it to another level not seen before anywhere and the community does not like it," Mulder says.

But one of the campaign's chief architects, Ian Johnston, director of Monash University's Accident Research Centre (which has also advised the Queensland government on its speeding strategy), says if scaring motorists into slowing down because a camera may nab them "anywhere, anytime" is the only way to slow motorists down, then so be it. "No other government has adopted a covert approach like Victoria has, because of political concerns," Johnston says.

But he warns we may be reaching the end of this road. "We can't keep hammering behaviour. We've been in love with the behaviour approach because it's cheap."

In the mid-1980s, one in two dead drivers was over the legal alcohol limit; now it is one in four. Most of us have got the "bloody idiot" message but there still remains a rump of motorists who haven't. Same with seatbelts; 97% of people in car accidents are wearing belts yet 20% of road deaths are of people not wearing a belt.

The next big gains in the road war will not come so easily, Johnston says. "We cannot continue to underinvest in roads. Governments are telling people that it is drunks, hoons and speed freaks who are the problem. What they don't mention is the numbers of deaths that occur on bad roads."

Victoria is not alone in targeting speed and having an infatuation with the cash that flows from hardline enforcement. In South Australia in 2003, the government gleaned nearly $24m from speed camera fines; Western Australia made $36m and Queensland, in 2002-03, made an estimated $25.5m. NSW has 111 fixed speed cameras (unlike Victoria, they are marked clearly), from which the government recouped $93.2m in fines in the 2002-03 financial year.

In SA, camera locations are published in newspapers. Most states adopt the black spot principle, targeting known accident hot spots with cameras. But experts caution it is a little like pouring pepper and salt over the nation's roadways.

"Black spots pick up relatively few crash sites overall," says Brooks, citing the example of pedestrian accidents, which occur everywhere. "If you want to make a serious dent in the number of deaths, you must slow down the traffic everywhere, just as Victoria has done. No other state takes this approach."

Motorists aren't immune to the speed message but they are sceptical about the seemingly devious ways governments are utilising to catch them out. An ATSB ­survey of community attitudes to road safety found that most people readily identified speed as the single most likely cause of crashes, yet more than half of those surveyed said fines for speeding were mainly intended to raise revenue.

British sociologist Alan Buckingham also caused a storm earlier this year on a visit to Australia when he claimed his research showed speed cameras did nothing to reduce accidents, and might even cause them. According to Buckingham, it is "excessive speed for the conditions" – where drivers travel at well above or well below the limit – that causes problems. The safest drivers are those who travel at the 85th percentile of the traffic's prevailing speed on any given road, which may be over the speed limit. He concludes that speed cameras are catching the safest drivers but not the most dangerous.

In Victoria, hidden cameras have brought on real cultural change. Just look at the numbers. The average speed has dropped from 64km/h to 60km/h. In 2000, 40,000 to 50,000 speeding tickets were issued every month. In 2002, with the introduction of the secret cameras, this soared to 90,000 per month. The number has settled at 50,000, which the government and police say is evidence that Victorian motorists are taking their medicine and, while not necessarily liking it, at least accepting their fate.

As for Johnston, he says he can "cop all the hate mail because it is saving lives". But he concedes the faulty cameras fiasco has kicked a mighty dent in the "anywhere, anytime" campaign. "Because of a political bunfight, the public's confidence in the strategy has been seriously undermined. It's made the task of holding the line on enforcement that much harder."

[MickLC]

pffttthhh the first red light speed camera's in Australia? My arse! They've had them here in Canberra for a couple of years.

[Smitty]

pffttthhh the first red light speed camera's in Australia? My arse! They've had them here in Canberra for a couple of years.

Mick....
not sure thats sumfing you should be bragging about.....

[MickLC]

hehehe...not bragging, just questioning the validity of the article

[Bluefly]

...And wasn't it a LOOOOOOng article!

[Smitty]

I DID warn you..........

[mrmina]

I couldn't be stuffed reading it!

[Lucas]

Mick C 98ZX9R

pffttthhh the first red light speed camera's in Australia? My arse! They've had them here in Canberra for a couple of years.

how long you had then in Canberra Mick
i can remember them in melbourne about 20 yrs ago

[icebreaker]

Red Light and Speed Camera... they have only been around about 2 years..
There are a couple on the Princes H'way..

[MickLC]

So red-light/speed camera's have been around all over the place for a number of years...so why do they make this statement in the article?

"New red-light speed cameras – again the first in Australia – are about to be installed..."

[aardvark]

Mick, that's a good question. We've had them in Adelaide now for about 12 months.

Maybe this is what they really mean:

"New red-light speed cameras – again the first in Australia of this particular brand – are about to be installed..."

or:

"New red-light speed cameras – again the first shipment in Australia – are about to be installed after sitting on the docks for the last 25 years, because we all know that the Wharfies wont work if it's raining, and hell, this is Melbourne after all!!"

[MickLC]

[Smitty]

Why don't I feel the need to reply to every post?:lol:

'coz ya Mick........................not mina..............................

[mrmina]

Thats nasty smitty.

I dont reply to every post. Now you on the other hand reply to every post more than once at a time.

and thats the truth!

[Smitty]

joke.......mina......

......nothing personal...........