More speed cameras for the ACT - effective or waste of money?

gooterz said :

How many patrol cars are getting replaced now

Speed (revenue) cameras do several things
– Cost money
– Take police off the road
– Target speeding and nothing else.

Speed cameras have nothing to do with police numbers. Zero, zilch, nada. Cameras aren’t replacing police.

My only issue with speed cameras is the placement. That p2p on Athllon Drive is ridiculous. You’d have to be trying to get a ticket to get pinged.

dungfungus said :

rubaiyat said :

Rollersk8r said :

gooterz said :

rigseismic67 said :

whats the problem? dont speed = dont pay

They’ll just lower the limits until they fill the revenue bucket. Year after year the bucket gets bigger.

No their logic is:

(a) More fines issued = behaviour not changing, more cameras needed.

(b) Less fines collected = behaviour adjustment working, more cameras needed.

Meanwhile, ACT road toll remains around 10 every year… I’d be willing to bet we have the highest number of speed cameras per capita – and also the lowest road death rate per capita.

We do have the lowest death rate but not the lowest severe road trauma rate.

Whilst deaths due to car accidents are on a long term decline, accidents and severe trauma are on a steady rise.

What this indicates is that better car safety standards and greater and more sophisticated medical intervention are keeping the victims of car crashes alive, but severely injured.

According to the Dept of Infrastructure & Regional Development statistics the cost of road crashes is now estimated at $27 billion a year.

Over 34,000 severely injured victims every year end up on the Australian hospital and social welfare budgets.

The ACT share of that is over $440 million per year.

Our high survival rate is probably due to lower speed limits and lack of rural driving, combined with the close proximity of health care. Country people are disproportionately represented in the road statistics both as fatalities and severe injuries. It is hard to get too far from help in the ACT.

Cars are a fact of life (and death).
What about the severe traumas resulting from bicycle accidents? You have conveniently left out any reference to them.

“Over 34,000 severely injured victims every year end up on the Australian hospital and social welfare budgets.”
My post was in relation to the cost to the community not to speed humps in Lycra running down pedestrians.

dungfungus said :

rubaiyat said :

Rollersk8r said :

gooterz said :

rigseismic67 said :

whats the problem? dont speed = dont pay

They’ll just lower the limits until they fill the revenue bucket. Year after year the bucket gets bigger.

No their logic is:

(a) More fines issued = behaviour not changing, more cameras needed.

(b) Less fines collected = behaviour adjustment working, more cameras needed.

Meanwhile, ACT road toll remains around 10 every year… I’d be willing to bet we have the highest number of speed cameras per capita – and also the lowest road death rate per capita.

We do have the lowest death rate but not the lowest severe road trauma rate.

Whilst deaths due to car accidents are on a long term decline, accidents and severe trauma are on a steady rise.

What this indicates is that better car safety standards and greater and more sophisticated medical intervention are keeping the victims of car crashes alive, but severely injured.

According to the Dept of Infrastructure & Regional Development statistics the cost of road crashes is now estimated at $27 billion a year.

Over 34,000 severely injured victims every year end up on the Australian hospital and social welfare budgets.

The ACT share of that is over $440 million per year.

Our high survival rate is probably due to lower speed limits and lack of rural driving, combined with the close proximity of health care. Country people are disproportionately represented in the road statistics both as fatalities and severe injuries. It is hard to get too far from help in the ACT.

Cars are a fact of life (and death).
What about the severe traumas resulting from bicycle accidents? You have conveniently left out any reference to them.

Not “conveniently” at all. Perhaps you can tell us how many people bicycles run over and kill? Also the bike related crime?

Listening to you car deaths and trauma are just acts of God, drivers just happen to be around.

rubaiyat said :

Rollersk8r said :

gooterz said :

rigseismic67 said :

whats the problem? dont speed = dont pay

They’ll just lower the limits until they fill the revenue bucket. Year after year the bucket gets bigger.

No their logic is:

(a) More fines issued = behaviour not changing, more cameras needed.

(b) Less fines collected = behaviour adjustment working, more cameras needed.

Meanwhile, ACT road toll remains around 10 every year… I’d be willing to bet we have the highest number of speed cameras per capita – and also the lowest road death rate per capita.

We do have the lowest death rate but not the lowest severe road trauma rate.

Whilst deaths due to car accidents are on a long term decline, accidents and severe trauma are on a steady rise.

What this indicates is that better car safety standards and greater and more sophisticated medical intervention are keeping the victims of car crashes alive, but severely injured.

According to the Dept of Infrastructure & Regional Development statistics the cost of road crashes is now estimated at $27 billion a year.

Over 34,000 severely injured victims every year end up on the Australian hospital and social welfare budgets.

The ACT share of that is over $440 million per year.

Our high survival rate is probably due to lower speed limits and lack of rural driving, combined with the close proximity of health care. Country people are disproportionately represented in the road statistics both as fatalities and severe injuries. It is hard to get too far from help in the ACT.

Cars are a fact of life (and death).
What about the severe traumas resulting from bicycle accidents? You have conveniently left out any reference to them.

This doesn’t become personal or a “real” issue of course until it happens to you.

Either you survive an accident caused by someone else and bear the consequences or you are the cause of the accident and have to carry the emotional scars as well:

http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/acts-crash-course-in-road-trauma-20131207-2yy1u.html

There are people for whom repeat offending seems to come natural and we get to hear about them after a more egregious offence on the evening news.

Mostly it barely gets a mention, because it is just too common.

Rollersk8r said :

gooterz said :

rigseismic67 said :

whats the problem? dont speed = dont pay

They’ll just lower the limits until they fill the revenue bucket. Year after year the bucket gets bigger.

No their logic is:

(a) More fines issued = behaviour not changing, more cameras needed.

(b) Less fines collected = behaviour adjustment working, more cameras needed.

Meanwhile, ACT road toll remains around 10 every year… I’d be willing to bet we have the highest number of speed cameras per capita – and also the lowest road death rate per capita.

We do have the lowest death rate but not the lowest severe road trauma rate.

Whilst deaths due to car accidents are on a long term decline, accidents and severe trauma are on a steady rise.

What this indicates is that better car safety standards and greater and more sophisticated medical intervention are keeping the victims of car crashes alive, but severely injured.

According to the Dept of Infrastructure & Regional Development statistics the cost of road crashes is now estimated at $27 billion a year.

Over 34,000 severely injured victims every year end up on the Australian hospital and social welfare budgets.

The ACT share of that is over $440 million per year.

Our high survival rate is probably due to lower speed limits and lack of rural driving, combined with the close proximity of health care. Country people are disproportionately represented in the road statistics both as fatalities and severe injuries. It is hard to get too far from help in the ACT.

How about putting one in the Bunda Street Shareway?

gooterz said :

rigseismic67 said :

whats the problem? dont speed = dont pay

They’ll just lower the limits until they fill the revenue bucket. Year after year the bucket gets bigger.

No their logic is:

(a) More fines issued = behaviour not changing, more cameras needed.

(b) Less fines collected = behaviour adjustment working, more cameras needed.

Meanwhile, ACT road toll remains around 10 every year… I’d be willing to bet we have the highest number of speed cameras per capita – and also the lowest road death rate per capita.

house_husband said :

rigseismic67 said :

whats the problem? dont speed = dont pay

The problem is the very argument you have just tried to put forward.

Call me strange but I want the road safety measures implemented by our government to be based on sound research, effective strategies and clear objectives. Both studies done in the ACT on our speed cameras have shown they achieve none of this.

The vast majority of casualty crashes in the ACT are not caused by or even involve speeding. Rolling out more speed cameras will have no effect whatsoever on the hundreds of people who are going to be injured on our roads in the coming years.

All it does is provide pollies and the police with the appearance of doing something about road safety without actually doing something aside from revenue raising.

Yeah the don’t speed don’t pay is a very simplistic argument and also doesn’t help.
Speed cameras do catch people speeding and raise revenue. They don’t help with overall safety, they don’t stop drink drivers (they probably catch drink drivers though and issue then a speeding ticket), they don’t help with tailgating, they don’t help with road safety.

The thing is it gives the illusion of caring without costing them too much.
Speed cameras if they are truly about safety should be in school zones and 40 zones in general.
Some roads in Canberra are built for traffic to drive at 100 km/h. Set the speed limit to realistic speeds and you’d have less speeding in general. The whole slowing traffic down to 30 was another stupid idea. It doesn’t help the child who gets hit by the car doing 40….. But putting in 30 limits looks like you care and its everyone else’s problem then.

Also a lot of people have no idea about road rules and generally have no idea about safety.

rigseismic67 said :

whats the problem? dont speed = dont pay

They’ll just lower the limits until they fill the revenue bucket. Year after year the bucket gets bigger.