18 September 2024

Fines for ‘average speed' breaches a lazy rural bashing option from a state government that won’t fix roads

| Oliver Jacques
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Average speed camera sign in Scotland

An average speed camera warning sign in Scotland. This could become a common sight in NSW. Photo: David Dixon.

The NSW Government is introducing a creative new regime to extract more money from drivers through fines.

It’s planning to trial ‘average speed’ detectors in regional areas, whereby it installs cameras at two points on a highway, records you at both spots and then hits you with a penalty notice if your average speed between those points exceeds the limit.

While a pair of point-to-point cameras already exists on Hindmarsh Drive in Canberra, I don’t see a case for NSW following the ACT’s lead. The move will disproportionately hurt rural drivers and is being introduced by a state government that won’t fulfil its side of the bargain by improving our regional transport network.

You can just imagine the conversations that might have gone on between the NSW Roads Minister and his bureaucrats before coming up with this idea:

Should we do something about all the potholes on our roads that led to 12,000 vehicles damaging their wheels and calling NRMA for roadside assistance in April and May? Nah.

What about upgrading our rail freight network so we don’t have so many trucks clogging up regional highways? Forget it, too expensive.

Shall we consider installing warning lights at all railway crossings so we stop seeing vehicles crashing into trains? Don’t like that either.

“I’ve got a better idea,” I imagine some clever bureaucrat saying. “We only make about $1 billion a year on penalty notices. Let’s raise even more revenue by introducing a whole new category of offence, where we nail drivers not only for speeding at a point in time but also track them over a long distance and bust them for average speed breaches. That’s perfect.”

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While point-to-point speed cameras are already used for heavy vehicles in NSW, expanding their remit to all drivers will hurt those of us who live in the bush most of all. We are the ones that travel long distances in cars – often to access services and jobs that governments have stripped away from rural towns.

Naturally, the NSW Government has chosen two regional areas to trial this new scheme, on the Pacific Highway between Kew and Lake Innes, and the Hume Highway between Coolac and Gundagai.

I can hear what city-based supporters of average speed breach fines might say in response – ‘it’s simple, don’t ever speed and you won’t ever get fined’.

In reality, it’s not that simple. If a driver doesn’t want to be stuck behind a semi-trailer going at 95 km/h on the Burley Griffin Way all afternoon, he may have to marginally exceed the speed limit to overtake.

Perhaps you think there’s no exceptions, drivers should never speed and if you’re stuck behind a truck, it’s bad luck. But if that’s the case, don’t governments also have a responsibility to improve traffic safety?

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For the past two decades, federal and state governments have done a woeful job maintaining and upgrading regional roads, preferring to spend our taxes on stadiums, museums and light rail in big cities. As a result, there are safety hazards all over regional road networks that put lives at risk.

The burden for reducing our road toll is disproportionately falling on rural residents, who are hit with higher and more frequent financial penalties while struggling with the rising cost of living.

My message to the NSW government is simple – before you bring in average speed cameras, do your job first and address the disgraceful state of country roads.

Original Article published by Oliver Jacques on Region Riverina.

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Hunter valley farmer12:17 am 14 Oct 24

Cars are better and roads and bridges are wider and better today.

The licencing system in this country is an utter joke.

As someone who recently moved to a regional southern border area with three of the most used roads in either state (Hume, Murray Valley and Goulburn Valley/Newell Hwy) you can’t overtake on the single lanes without speeding and that includes some of the 110kph duals. Unfortunately many truck drivers don’t care about your travel plans when they overtake slower vehicles on inclines; they will pull out so shifting back through the gears doesn’t interrupt their momentum too much, and sometimes it’s a convoy situation you have to round.
I travel back to Canberra, down to Melbourne and around the region on a weekly basis and NSW roads are better in general than Victorian roads, but the ACT tops them all.
But budgets are set for current incomes streams and so is maintenance. To increase maintenance you need the Feds to step up with grants or cofunding or find alternate revenue raising bases.
There are a thousand traffic management reports from across the country that directly address speed and impacts that poor road surfaces have on vehicles and their occupants.
Maybe one for National Cabinet and the Infrastructure Australia teams to deal with so we get some consistency from state to state.

Seriously? To exceed the average speed limit you have to go over the speed limit so almost by definition you are speeding at many points. The advantage of an average speed camera is that it allows you to pass a slower moving vehicle without penalty as long as you slow down a bit somewhere else along the stretch of road. Much better than a single point camera.

Hunter valley farmer12:08 am 14 Oct 24

Both are nothing more than revenue to be honest, cars and roads are safer today, but the licencing system is an utter joke at best.

If you are overtaking someone between two average speed cameras you will have a better chance of getting away without a fine than if a mobile speed camera is at the overtaking location. Average speed cameras reduce consistent speeding.
If you are sitting on 120kmph for the span between the cameras then you’ll get caught. Driving at 140kmph for 400m then sticking to the speed limit will not get you fined as the average will be minimally impacted.

NSW Road crash data isn’t very helpful in terms of the types/cause of crashes. Victoria does a much better job IMO. I’ve looked at the 110kph stretch between Wodonga and Wangaratta. For crashes between about 2014 and 2023, the data shows that the major incident is cars leaving the road and hitting an object or parked car – 40 out of 83 incidents. That resulted in 3 out of 6 fatalities. The other 3 fatalities involved a side swipe, pedestrian and cross traffic.
The continual focus on speeding despite the increasing road toll is as understandable as it is lazy. It’s measurable, easy to detect, ever more easy to automate and revenue positive.
Fixing roads, widening road verges, detecting driver fatigue and inattention (particularly on our long regional roads), fixing our driving culture, requires intensive effort in terms of road crews, material, equipment, extra police and is VERY revenue negative.
https://vicroadsopendata-vicroadsmaps.opendata.arcgis.com/datasets/vicroadsmaps::victorian-road-crash-data/explore?location=-36.201859%2C146.722946%2C11.13

The major cause of crashes on rural roads is speed. So don’t exceed the speed limit, and this will not impact you. Your example argument about being stuck behind a truck and then having to speed to pass it doesn’t stack up because it is an average speed camera. Therefore, if you are stuck behind a truck, you are going lower than the speed limit, so when you have to speed to pass it, this will AVERAGE out; get it?

Hunter valley farmer12:13 am 14 Oct 24

Poor at best driver training if anything, if your statements were true, I would be dead, yet I am still breathing.

Learning how to handle and control speed and drive at large is 1 thing the current city centric licence does Sweet F.A. to do.

Hunter valley farmer
“… if your statements were true, I would be dead, yet I am still breathing.”
I assume you are referring to the “major cause of crashes on rural roads is speed. So don’t exceed the speed limit, and this will not impact you” part of dazzer’s post.

What a ridiculous comment … with an attitude like that, your ‘longevity’ sounds like it’s attributable more to good luck than good management.

hang on – there are already two point-to-point cameras in regional NSW that I have driven through. One on the Monaro Highway between Bredbo and Cooma and one on the Hume Highway near Yass.

What am I missing about a trial?

Lefty Boomer8:44 am 20 Sep 24

Mount Victoria between Bx and Katoomba.

Capital Retro7:59 am 25 Sep 24

They were built over 10 years ago but never commissioned.

Itsumishi The Wonder Canned Tuna6:32 am 20 Sep 24

The author has clearly not thought through their example of when it might be appropriate to speed and what type of speeding these types of cameras capture.

If you’re only temporarily speeding to overtake a truck that is travelling well below the speed limit, you might be unlucky enough to get pinged by a single speed camera.

However if you’ve been stuck behind a slow moving truck and then only breached the limit for the purpose of overtaking you’ll still be under the speed limit on average and not picked up by point to point cameras.

You’re only going to get stung by point to point cameras if you drive exactly on the speed limit and occasionally speed to overtake, or if you cruise along above the speed limit for extended periods. Neither of those scenarios reflects safe driving and both are clear breaches of the law.

There could be a trade off where the close supervision and control of speeding enabled by average speed cameras can justify speed limit increases.

Need to be at several points on the King’s Hwy to slow the beach going lunatics down.

Hunter valley farmer12:16 am 14 Oct 24

Why ???
So many highways are better, the cars are better, the licencing system in this country is a joke at best.
Most people have moved on from a T model Ford motor car.

“If a driver doesn’t want to be stuck behind a semi-trailer going at 95 km/h on the Burley Griffin Way all afternoon, he may have to marginally exceed the speed limit to overtake.”
Oh and after overtaking the semi-trailer is the driver then ‘allowed’ (according to the author) to continue to drive at 120kph to make up for the lost time while being stuck behind the semi-trailer – which is probably the issue with exceeding the average? The crux of the matter is the distance between the two measuring cameras – the greater the distance the easier it is to moderate the average speed.

They shouldn’t be able to do this until they have a rail system that is faster than car!

Martin Silsby11:14 am 19 Sep 24

Exactly right. People in the country should be able to speed as much as they like, don’t you know the distances they need to cover?

They should also be able to drive without a seatbelt and while drunk, all with their mates riding on the back of the ute, taking the opportunity to shoot at signs (and roos) with AR-15’s.

Do the crime? Pay the fine.

Whilst I take the point about overtaking on rural roads, the Hume Highway is a two lane dual carriageway so you don’t need to speed to overtake trucks. Not sure about the Pacific Highway but if it’s limited to this type of road it seems perfectly reasonable to me.

You’re not allowed to speed to overtake.

So the answer is still if you don’t speed you don’t have a problem.

and it’s (as always) a rubbish answer which doesn’t engage with the reality of motor vehicle operation in regional areas.

It’s not a “rubbish answer” champion, it’s the law…look it up.

Which part of speeding ‘doesn’t engage with the reality of motor vehicle operation in regional areas’? As a former HP officer, the first question I asked was what speed were you doing before you overtook the truck? If the answer is XXX ie the posted speed limit, then I asked why did you need to overtake? Unless the driver was able to provide a satisfactory answer ie medical emergency etc, then I booked them for exceeding the speed limit becuase, by their own admission, that’s exactly what they had done!

The argument about being stuck behind a truck doesn’t hold up.

Let’s assume the entire length of Burley Griffin Way has a 100km/h limit (yes, that there are sections that have much lower limits).

At 100km/h you are covering a kilometre every 36 seconds. That would mean that it would take you 165.6 minutes to travel that road end-to-end (2 hours, 45 minutes, 36 seconds).

At 95km/h you are covering a kilometre every 38 seconds. Using the same assumption as above, it would take a total of 174.8 minutes (2 hours, 54 minutes, 45 seconds). A difference of 9 minutes and 12 seconds.

Ben… Well said, and for the benefit of those people worried about being ‘financially disadvantaged’ by the averaging of their speed over that same distance, they now have that some of that extra 9 minutes & 12 seconds to ‘catch up’ ie exceed the posted limit when & where road conditions allow.

opso – the government thanks your for your contribution to revenue raising

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