More speed/red light cameras

“slowing from approx 115 down to

“

nothing I guess? That’s why you were not booked – although I’m surprised you were not liberace’d stopped on Canberra Avenue…

I was sure I was nabbed on Canberra Ave heading to Qbn a couple of weeks ago by a speed wagon near Harman. As soon as i spotted it I braked significantly, slowing from approx 115 down to

just use cruise control on them roads and worries are solved.

I quietly cheered when I noticed the Arboretum sign had been graffitied. I’ve been waiting months for someone else to get then idea…

You’ve all ignored the fact that sticking to our speed limits saves a lot of $$ on petrol.
-Even more if they lowered them further.

I’d place snipers every kilometre along the road to pick off the speedsters / lane changers / hoon wankers.

Bonfire an idiot! I would not say that aloud.

However, more to the point, those speed cameras are said to be rotated between pill boxes along the Parkway (btw have you seen that the Aboreteum sign has been graffited?) and with some thing called an in-road camera.

Bonfire, I’d like to know if you did your 150km/h down the Hume in your Stanley Steamer. You’d need a pretty impressive head of steam for that speed! Furthermore, stopping may have been somewhat of a challenge given a Stanley only has expanding shoe drum rear brakes.

because a marked car makes everyone think about what they’re doing.

By your thinking why not have secret police all over?

cranky, they may record, but they don’t issue fines.
The infra red lights do go off if it’s at night though.

VY_V8 why have them in MARKED cars, why not unmarked..

Speed cameras are nothing but revenue raising. They create more problems than they resolve because everyone drives around staring at the speedo instead of the road. The do not reduce many of the accident types. Those that think they do are softheads who have been suckered by govco advertising.

The solution is better driver training and greater police presence patroling the roads in marked cars (and booking morons for not indicating, driving in right hand lane for no reason, etc).

Re the Safe-T-Cams.

Some years ago it was revealed in court that the prime suspects in the Saudia Bill murder case had been recorded by the Safe-T-Cam at Bargo travelling at some particular very early hour of the day in question to/from (or both) Canberra. They were in a sedan at the time.

no shanefos and all you other smug bastards – i use pt to get to work and jog home.

lanechanging obsessives shit me – they are more dangerous than any person speeding. crossing three lanes of traffic, overtaking a car, then crossing two more etc.

should be dragged from car and thrashed.

i like to pick a lane and stay in it.

unless driving miss daisy is doing 60 in an 80 or 100 zone.

which is very dangerous to other road users.

id prefer zero road speed limits. all traffic would then find its natural safe level at which to travel at.

“More police on the road? I assume you mean hiding behind trees and bushes jumping out with a laser or radar speed gun.”
I nearly ran one of those over in QLD a few years ago .. Scared the bejesus out or me.

Victorias new system is 4 cameras placed at a location, set off by in road electrics light traffic lights, which are linked to another set of 4 cameras 10km or so further up the road. If the speed limit is 110kmh, and the distance should be travelled in x minutes, anyone going faster than that may be booked.

Number plates are cross referenced from A-B and the poor bugger who was sitting on 113kmh gets booked…

Hey bonfire, didn’t you pass me at a rapid rate of knots and disappear into the distance this morning? And didn’t I pull up next to you at the next set of lights?

Bonfire – you have no excuses – you are just an idiot

Amen to that shanefos.

youre the type of idiot that sits on 60 in the right hand 80 lane.

Speed cameras are a great idea, if only because they piss off the type of wankers that think it’s safe to do 20kph over the speed limit. You’re the guys that weave in and out of traffic who’re invariably stopped at the same red light the rest of the law abiding road users they just sped past pull up to.

oh well. as long as they don’t improve them to detect commuter traffic in the next 3 months, i’ll be happy.

no – they are improving them to apply to passenger vehicles.

the erosion of rights and liberty never goes backwards my friend.

until the revolution!

from [link]

Safe-T-Cam
Safe-T-Cam is an RTA initiative that aims to reduce the incidence of heavy vehicle speed and fatigue in an effort to prevent heavy vehicle accidents.

Safe-T-Cam is an automated monitoring system that uses digital camera technology capable of reading the front number plate of heavy vehicles.

Safe-T-Cam will identify vehicles that:

Have travelled at excessive speed.
Have travelled beyond prescribed driving hours.
Have attempted to avoid detection by Safe-T-Cam.
Are unregistered.

So useless for normal commuter traffic

I think Safe-T-Cams are for transport industry regulation.

and i also agree that the hume is a nice, relatively straight, safe, highway, where it’s quite suitable to do 139K (or 129K in the 100 zones)
the only problem with the hume, is it’s boring, and you’re more likely to fall asleep than anythnig else

JR – with those cameras on the hume you were talking about – do you mean the Safe-T-Cams, like near albury and gundagai ? Cause I can absolutely guarantee you that they do NOT work with small vehicles like that.
I’ve done enough trips down that highway, at fast enough speeds, through those cameras, and never received a ticket, to know that they don’t work on small vehicles.
They are solely for large trucks and such

The effectiveness of these cameras is demonstrated as such:
I speed. Fixed speed camera catches me.
I establish that there is always a speed camera in this location. Therefore, I make sure NOT to speed in this location.
everyone else does the same. Therefore, speed cameras catch less people, therefore, “less people speed”
where as, in reality, because we’re canberrans, we still continue to drive stupidly, and above the speed limit almost all the time.

Yeah Ferret, I too wondered why it was not at least 90km/h or 100km/h. It does seem slightly slow along there. But the chances of a crash are huge on that road. Such poor design.

I think that mobile speed cameras are useless. You just brake as soon as you see them. They have to take 2 photos, one from afar and one up close. This is what my brother found out from the police a couple of years back.

As for intersection ones, well as has been stated, simply slow down for the lights and then go again. I noticed at about 12am on Saturday night at the Dickson/Northbourne intersection. The light were green along Northbourne and a little red car with about a 20 year old in it ran the red light from Lynham towards Dickson. Of course the speed and red light camera did not pick it up.

Would we have to put in so many more speed cameras. Personally if they took some of the money they spent and put it into a light rail system around Canberra I would use it. Until such a time they put in a better public transport system I will not use it for my personal use. On that note I should say cheers to the ACTION bus driver who denied one of my fellow staff members entry onto the bus as a concession. He was caring for 9 primary school children at the time. And to make matters better, the bus driver did not wait to let all the children off the bus when they arrived at their stop, he kept driving with kids still on the bus. All worked out in the end.

“why does it matter if you can do 100 instead of 80?”
Its not the point its the fact that they crap on about safety as the reason for these blanket limits when its total bullshit. Yes in built up areas fine but not on good open safe roads.

I don’t have a car due to the fact that I live near work and this still pisses me off.
its revenue raising and its that simple. What is the ACT road toll?
The average time idea is not practical as I could go past the first camera wait an hour, drive at 200Km/hr and not get booked.

Bang your head against that particular wall all you like, Ferret. I think you’ll find writing to the relevant departments is more cost-effective.

Besides (and no-one ever manages to answer this question) why does it matter if you can do 100 instead of 80? How much difference will it make in Canberra? Two minutes in your drive to work?

“bonfire: you conveniently chose to omit the context of what I was trying to say – “black spots””

Thats the thing very few of these speed cameras are in black spots and speed over time cameras in Victoria are the worst offenders its purely revenue raising.

Speed limits on open dual lane highways in Australia such as the Hume highway to Sydney should be 150km/hr limit with policing mainly concentrated on common sense laws like stay out of the fast lane.

Its a 130km/hr limit in France with general traffic flow up around 140 to 160 in the fast lane. We can easily handle an increase above that of France because of the reduced population.

If there are any speed Cameras installed on Gungahlin Drive, I will assist anyone wanting to perform minor acts of Civil Disobedience.

The road is brand new, absolutely safe and well designed, and 80 f**king KMH limited.

If every piece of underfunded potholed highway in Australia is 100, why is the new bit of GDE not the same speed???

Those damn Stalinists and their speed cameras! Call me a softhead, but I think there are greater threats to our liberty than speed cameras.

It’s a tax alright bonfire. But it’s an optional one.

More police on the road? I assume you mean hiding behind trees and bushes jumping out with a laser or radar speed gun.

i prefer less surrendering of rights and liberties to automatons.

if govts were serious – they would have more polce on roads.

cameras are a revenue raising tactic, dressed in safety clothing.

instead of fixing the black spots they put cameras there ?

how ghoulish is that.

but if you are happy that road safety is ignored in the service of extracting more taxation from the citizenry then you deserve the dictators you get.

any accidents that occur are not as a result of ’speeding’ but carelessness or stupidity.

I would have thought going faster than you are experienced to handle would be careless and stupid.

Not saying that you (bonfire) are careless in going that speed – but not everyone is as confident a driver and may not want to drive 150 in a 150kp/h zone – hence reduced speed limits – to make sure the more timid drivers can drive to the environment presented – we already get the shits with people going 50 in an 80 – what happens if we raise the speed limit to say 130 or 150 – those same timid drivers will still go slow – caussing rode rage and reckless driving to go around/avoid them.

Besides – you can be the best driver in the world – but that will not stop a shit driver running into you – and I for one would rather that at 100-110km/h than 150kmh

I think raising the speed limits would be careless and stupid – but I dont agree with exercises purely for revenue raising – i prefer the old Safe-T-cam method – described above.

No one has to agree, this is my opinion and mine alone.

bonfire: you conveniently chose to omit the context of what I was trying to say – “black spots”

jr that method of ‘policing’ is simply revenue raising.

the hume in vic is one of the safest, best designed roads in the country. i use it many times a year.

it can easily handle 200kmh plus speeds on most of it. i have routinely sped down it at 150kmh.

any accidents that occur are not as a result of ‘speeding’ but carelessness or stupidity.

when a camera can detect that, let us all know.

redlight cameras i think have more justification in terms of crash prevention.

and what do we want to achieve ? more revenue or less road trauma ?

I would encourage red light and speed camera on every signaled intersection on the basis of safety. You wont run reds and you’ll slow down at the intersections.

Instantaneous speed cameras are purely a revenue raising exercise. They only moderate the traffic in the direct “view” of the camera.. people will speed before and after the unit.

If they were serious about speed cameras then they would implement what has been done on the Hume highway in Victoria – which is speed over time cameras. Your average speed over a distance (hopefully “black spots”) is measured and you cop an infringement if your AVERAGE speed over that designated distance is higher than the limit. Nett effect – that entire stretch of road is treated more seriously.

Fixed cameras only stop dipshits.

If you have a brain, you kow where they are, and slow down for that short stretch.

My last ticket was in NSW, from a cop in a car over 15 years ago. Haven’t been booked locally, and heaven knows I don’t obey the letter of the law…

“We’d love to see some data on the effectiveness of these fixed cameras over time.”

Yep exactly and I’m waiting to see the figures for the Stuart Highway in NT. I’m willing to bet we don’t see any reduction in deaths from reducing the Unlimited speed limit down to 130km/hr.

Same with on the Federal Highway just a blatant revenue raising exercise. If they want to raise money fair enough just don’t do it under the pretense of safety by telling me traveling at 130km/hr on a twin lane concrete highway is unsafe. Total bullshit. Red light cameras I can agree with though.