31 August 2015

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

| Evilomlap
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The ACT Government has announced it will expand the territory’s speed camera network from today, with at least 30 new locations for mobile speed vans being trialled by the end of next month, and the vans on duty an extra 120 hours per week.

The more the merrier as far as I’m concerned. Anything that slows Canberra’s speeding drivers down for even a few minutes is a good thing.

What do you think? Effective deterrent or waste of taxpayers’ money?

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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.

house_husband1:57 pm 01 Sep 15

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.

Evilomlap said :

rigseismic67 said :

whats the problem? dont speed = dont pay

Haha I’m with you. Unfortunately Canberra’s impatient drivers don’t seem to be able to grasp that simple concept. I’ve had the interesting experience of doing a fair bit of driving in both metro and regional areas of Australia. I honestly don’t think any particular town or city has the ‘worst’ drivers, but I’ve found that Canberra’s are among the most impatient I’ve ever come across. Try hesitating for a moment in a mall parking garage. Hint: brace yourself for the onslaught of abuse you’ll receive.

I’ve no problems with that equation (dont speed = dont pay). But add ‘road safety’ into the mix and you’ve lost all my respect and trust.

Want to install cameras to increase revenue? Fine. Just be honest about that.
Want to increase road safety and you’re using cameras to achieve that? If you’ve no data/measurements to support effectiveness, then that’s just wrong and I’m against it.

These cameras are a waste of money.

We will all be in self driving 4WDs soon and roads will be a thing of the past!

rigseismic67 said :

whats the problem? dont speed = dont pay

Haha I’m with you. Unfortunately Canberra’s impatient drivers don’t seem to be able to grasp that simple concept. I’ve had the interesting experience of doing a fair bit of driving in both metro and regional areas of Australia. I honestly don’t think any particular town or city has the ‘worst’ drivers, but I’ve found that Canberra’s are among the most impatient I’ve ever come across. Try hesitating for a moment in a mall parking garage. Hint: brace yourself for the onslaught of abuse you’ll receive.

Expanding the speed camera network year upon year is nowhere near enough. What we really need is “safety cameras” constantly recording inside every Canberran household. Just think of how many domestic accidents this will prevent – and how many lives will be saved!! You know it makes sense.

rigseismic6712:30 pm 01 Sep 15

whats the problem? dont speed = dont pay

Dame Canberra12:15 pm 01 Sep 15

Felix the Cat said :

Not a waste of money, as such, because they will recoup costs many times over during their service. But as a road safety measure they are a waste of time. They won’t detect drunk or drugged drivers, tailgaiters, drivers not indicating, drivers not giving way etc etc. They probably even contribute to some crash statistics as drivers are constantly watching their speedos instead of the road.

I’m with Felix. There must be more effective ways to crack down on dangerous drivers without speed cameras, which are blatant revenue raising – especially when they aren’t positioned in road safety black spots.

rubaiyat said :

rubaiyat said :

Build in the impossible to fool timed distance cameras into the freeway and main road Toll Booths.!

Always wanted to get together with a mate who had the same make and model Commodore as me, swap ONE number plate, then line up at the beginning and ending cameras.

On signal over our iPhones we shoot through both and see if the system can cope with hyperdrive velocities.

I want to do that on the Hindmarsh speed camera. Use Tamar St for car #2 to enter and car #1 to exit.

Unfortunately I don’t know many people who drive a brown BMW from 1974.

bigred said :

Still trying to establish who is actually the minister for road safety. Any clues?

I believe road safety falls under the jurisdiction of the Justice and Community Safety committee; here are the listed members: http://www.parliament.act.gov.au/in-committees/standing_committees/Justice-and-Community-Safety , so presumably Mr Steve Doszpot MLA (Chair) would be the equivalent of a minister for road safety…

BTW, this is their landing page for the work they are doing: http://www.justice.act.gov.au/safety_and_emergency/road_safety

How many patrol cars are getting replaced now?

Would love to see some stats before and after to go with these camera’s.

Namely:
Accidents along the whole route before and the reduction of accidents since the cameras started.
The number of accidents caused by speed changes at the point of the traffic light.
The actual operational time of the cameras.

“The northbound fixed speed camera on Athllon Drive, between Drakeford Drive and Beasley Street, issued only six infringements notices in the past year, totalling $2118 in fines.”

http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/canberras-least-profitable-speed-cameras-broken-much-of-the-year-20150416-1mmfos.html

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

Felix said “recoup costs many times over during their service”
Sure but at the cost of that money going into local businesses. You’d probably have a point if the speed cameras are made locally but I really doubt they are, more than likely the company that’s based overseas costs significant amounts to install and maintain them. (if its anything like the Euro traffic lights or number plates).

The fact that most accidents happen at intersections means that speed cameras are almost useless.

Just about any car speed research will say that most people speed because they believe that the actual speed limits aren’t correct for the road. And in the ACT this is made worse by cheap nasty uneven speed bumps.

I would say that 95% of drivers speed, mostly because of incorrect speed limits.
GDE “The road has been designed for 100km/h and drivers appear to behave accordingly.”
http://www.tams.act.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0006/384513/GDE_speed_limit_report.pdf

fernandof said :

It’s not a waste of money, it’s a waste of public trust affirming that when it comes to the misused term ‘road safety’, the ACT Government, just like any other state authority in Australia, considers revenue and financial benefits as being of a much higher priority than public safety.

There are many ways to make roads safer, and there is one sure way to make a profit – add more speed cameras. Adding speed cameras may or may not create safer roads (there is a lot of controversy in that field), but it sure fills up the coffers.

Still trying to establish who is actually the minister for road safety. Any clues?

rubaiyat said :

Build in the impossible to fool timed distance cameras into the freeway and main road Toll Booths.!

Always wanted to get together with a mate who had the same make and model Commodore as me, swap ONE number plate, then line up at the beginning and ending cameras.

On signal over our iPhones we shoot through both and see if the system can cope with hyperdrive velocities.

At least they’ll have to stop to pay the toll.

Make them pay in small change, into one of those swirly scoop things, should do the trick.

Excellent idea to stop the car crime wave.

Build in the impossible to fool timed distance cameras into the freeway and main road Toll Booths.

No more tax payer funded free hoon rides!

VYBerlinaV8_is_back said :

Speed cameras are a great idea if used properly. I’d be very supportive of putting them in school zones, high pedestrian areas and places with higher than usual rates of speed related accident.

Seeing them on the Monaro Highway, on the other hand…

I’d tend to agree with both your points here. Whether or not they act as a deterrent in general can be argued (I’m in the affirmative here), but that they are ineffective on highways is evident.

Take the one I drive past almost every day on the Federal Highway (just before the BP roundabout as you’re heading to Sydney) – like clockwork, people slow down to 80, then as soon as they’re past it, they blast on up to whatever illegal speed they were doing. You’d have to be a complete moron to get booked by it, there’s no less than 3 signs advertising its existence. It slows people down for all of 20 seconds, and I dare say as a ‘revenue raising’ device, it fails spectacularly.

VYBerlinaV8_is_back3:35 pm 31 Aug 15

Speed cameras are a great idea if used properly. I’d be very supportive of putting them in school zones, high pedestrian areas and places with higher than usual rates of speed related accident.

Seeing them on the Monaro Highway, on the other hand…

It’s not a waste of money, it’s a waste of public trust affirming that when it comes to the misused term ‘road safety’, the ACT Government, just like any other state authority in Australia, considers revenue and financial benefits as being of a much higher priority than public safety.

There are many ways to make roads safer, and there is one sure way to make a profit – add more speed cameras. Adding speed cameras may or may not create safer roads (there is a lot of controversy in that field), but it sure fills up the coffers.

Felix the Cat2:47 pm 31 Aug 15

Not a waste of money, as such, because they will recoup costs many times over during their service. But as a road safety measure they are a waste of time. They won’t detect drunk or drugged drivers, tailgaiters, drivers not indicating, drivers not giving way etc etc. They probably even contribute to some crash statistics as drivers are constantly watching their speedos instead of the road.

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