Red light cameras

The Hindmarsh Drive/Canberra Avenue lights have apparently been there for a while.

They work no differently/secretly/specially etc to the ones throughout the rest of the ACT (ie: Northbourne Ave/Antill St – where I have been done twice!!! this year for speeding – to get through an amber light on the way home from Sydney, I just gotta relax more when I get into the ACT!)

From:

http://www.tams.act.gov.au/move/roads/road_safety/speedandspeeding/red_light_cameras#how_do_the_cameras_work?

“Find information about Red light cameras in the ACT and how to pay a red light camera fine.

Where will the cameras be used?
Why do we need the cameras?
How do the cameras work?
What should I do when the traffic lights change to amber?
What happens if my vehicle is photographed?

As part of a range of measures to make our roads safer, the ACT began introducing red light cameras in December 2000.

The cameras selected for the ACT are capable of detecting both red light and speeding offences, and are designed to operate 24 hours a day in all lighting conditions.

Where will the cameras be used?
The cameras are being progressively introduced at intersections with a history of serious crashes, which is the sole criterion for selecting red light camera locations. Cameras have so far been installed at the following intersections:

Northbourne Avenue, Barry Drive and Cooyong Street, Civic
Drakeford Drive and Marconi Crescent, Kambah
Ginninderra Drive and Coulter Drive, Belconnen
Ginninderra Drive and Aikman Drive, Belconnen
Barry Drive and Marcus Clarke Street, Civic
Hindmarsh Drive/Tuggeranong Parkway, Woden
Hindmarsh Drive/Yamba Drive, Woden
Northbourne Avenue/Mouat Street/Antill Street, Dickson
Northbourne Avenue/London Circuit, Civic
Hindmarsh Drive/Ball Street, Woden
Canberra Avenue/Hindmarsh Drive, Fyshwick

Signs alerting motorists to the presence of the cameras have been placed on the approaches to the intersections.

Work is underway to install red light/speed cameras at the following sites:

Gungahlin Drive/Gundaroo Road, Gingahlin
Canberra Avenue/Captain Cook Crescent, Manuka Circle
These are expected to be operational mid 2007.

Why do we need the cameras?
About 15% of road casualties in the ACT, involving around 65 people a year, occurs at traffic lights, often as a result of motorists running red lights.

Recent red light camera trials in Canberra found there was also a high incidence of speeding through traffic lights, while some vehicles were detected both speeding and running red lights at the same time.

Crashes at intersections generally involve a side impact collision with a consequent high risk of serious injury or death. The higher the speed, the greater the risk.

Interstate experience shows that red light cameras typically reduce the number of serious right-angle crashes by about 40%. Speed cameras have also proved to be an effective deterrent to speeding.

How do the cameras work?
The cameras used in the ACT are fully-automated, all-digital systems incorporating the most sophisticated technology of its type.

Sensors embedded in the road detect the presence of vehicles at the intersection. If a vehicle proceeds against a red light, a signal is sent to the camera, which then takes a series of colour photographs of its passage through the intersection. The vehicle is identified by its number plate.

The same system also calculates the speed of vehicles at the intersection and activates the camera if the pre-set limit is exceeded. This occurs regardless of whether the traffic lights are green, red or amber.

The system is able to detect red light and speeding offences that occur simultaneously. Vehicles that are speeding and running red lights at the same time can incur infringement notices for both offences.

The images and infringement details, including the time and location, are digitally recorded on a disk or another storage medium for electronic data ( a recording medium).

What should I do when the traffic lights change to amber?
The amber light is a warning that the traffic signal is about to turn red and you must stop unless you are too close to the intersection to pull up safely. There is no need for panic braking, which could result in someone running into the back of your vehicle, or for accelerating over the speed limit.

Motorists are reminded that they are required to maintain a sufficient distance from the vehicle ahead to enable them to avoid a collision should it stop unexpectedly. Road safety experts recommend you keep a gap of at least three seconds between your vehicle and the one in front.

What happens if my vehicle is photographed?
If you are identified as a registered operator of a vehicle detected by a camera for running a red light or exceeding the speed limit, you will receive an infringement notice in the mail, usually within about four working days of the offence.

As with other traffic infringement notices, you have 28 days to either pay the fine or take some other action.

Anyone issued with an infringement notice for a camera detected offence can examine the image produced by the camera, and can obtain a free copy.

If desired, a camera image can be viewed at:

1st Floor Counter, 13-15 Challis Street, Dickson ACT 2602

If you have any further questions about red light or speed cameras, please contact the Traffic Camera Office, telephone (02) 6207 7182 .

For information about how to dispute a traffic infringement notice, see ACT Policing – Paying Traffic Fines “

I think JTK you’re kidding yourself at 10 per day. I’m thinking triple figures at least.

What concerns me about all this is the absolute dearth of speed advisory signs throughout the ACT. And when there actually are some, they are right at an intersection when you are busy merging/not crashing/etc, but never where you need them. So you are left thinking “could be 100, could be 80 – maybe split the difference?” It’s not like you can base your decision on the speed others around you like JTK are doing…

With the ACT budgetted income from speed cameras jumping from $12M to $20.5M according to 666 this morning, surely $500K could be found for tripling the number of speed signs out there??

PS: after turning out of Mitchell onto Gungahlin Drive last Wednesday night, drove past a mobile camera van – 200m BEFORE the speed sign…stinks.

Nice straight stretch – Great revenue raising potential. (Remember that these cameras cost hundreds of thousands of dollars)

From a taxpayers perspective, I am saddened that the government chose to use induction loops – They are easily damaged, and once damaged, they don’t sense cars any more.

All it takes is a battery powered drill, and a 12 inch long drill bit like you might find in Bunnings in Belconnen for about $30.00. Probably likely to happen, given the isolated location of the cameras.

Radar or Infrared is much more robust.

But, at approximately $200,000 each, and with fines ranging from $130 – $200 or so dollars – It will take around 1000 fines to pay for the infrastructure (assuming the sensors keep working)

If it collects 10 people per day (conservatively), that would be 3650 fines per year – Quite a great little money spinner if you ask me…

Wo Hoo!

BD48 – “One 500m section of the Parkway will now be 100km/hr the rest will still be travelled at about 120km/hr+ lol”

Probably doesn’t take that much distance. – This morning, I was hooting down the parkway at my usual 140Km/h, and tramped the brakes to drop me down to the statutory 100 at the camera. Then, back onto the accelerator and up to 140 again.

It’s great that they chose induction loops in the road – You know exactly where the speed is sensed from. None of the worry about where that radar or infrared laser is pointed…

Was kind of fun really!!

So – Yet again – the ACT Government wastes money.

I noticed that speed camera tonight on the parkway – feel sorry for the guy in front of me if it is turned on – he was doing at least 150k’s. Drove past me like i was standing still!

Although i’d like to think its not quite on yet – dont they have to legally put up signs informing drivers that they are there ???

Despite all of this wonderful technology, I can’t help but wonder whether some more marked police presence on our roads wouldn’t be a more effective and desirable solution.

Of course that would be a better solution. But then it would just deter drivers instead of taking our money then deterring.

You know I kind of thought this was the type installed EVERYWHERE in the ACT. IIRC correctly the only radar type was a trail on Northborne/London Circuit years ago. With the red light you will find that you have to break both sensors to be done. Ie you can trigger the first, but you must be moving through to get done for running a red.

In other related good news..
The permanent speed cameras are beginning to erected on the Tuggeranong Parkway in both directions just on the city side of the Cotter Road overpass, the north bound one is already in place, I doubt it is turned on as yet, but you never know.. One 500m section of the Parkway will now be 100km/hr the rest will still be travelled at about 120km/hr+ lol

I’m sure those cameras are highly effective at catching people that run red lights at those intersections.

Despite all of this wonderful technology, I can’t help but wonder whether some more marked police presence on our roads wouldn’t be a more effective and desirable solution.

heard the RTA guy on 666 the other day explaining these and you don’t get the fine for hitting the first sensor at 30cm over the line. As the start of the article aove states, there are 2 sensors, with the second sensor at 2m over the white line so if you do pass from the first to the 2nd then yo get fined because 2m over the line is way over and in the way of pedestrians or other trafficaving said that, it is still wrong (and an instant fail in a driving test) to go over the white line.

Woody’s right

A colleague got pinged for going through a red light. What he did was stop at the intersection then rolled across the line in anticipation of the lights going green when the other lights went red.

They sound like the cameras that NSW has been using for years. They are far from undetectable, look at the camera on Lanyon Drive and you can see where the sensors have been laid in the road.

Most that info sounds like crap. But the best way to avoid finding out is don’t speed and stop behind the stop line like it tells you to in the road users handbook. Geez it doesn’t take genius…

being fined when you haven’t committed an offence

You’re the copper so I’ll take your word for it, but isn’t it an offence to fail to stop behind the line at an intersection? I think you can lose points off your licence for it, anyway…

I got the same email, and don’t really get it…how is this different from how the red light/speed cameras work now (except for the thing about being charged for a tiny overshoot, which sounds like a bit of an urban myth)? Look at the road at any of the red light cameras and there’s quite obviously two wire sensors embedded in the road (though hardly “undetectable”) just beyond the stop line. I presumed that was how they’d always worked (seems way cheaper and more sensible than fitting a radar to each one).

The device is called an amphometer, and I believe legislation exists in the ACT permitting their use.

Sounds like a gee up to me. The locations and hte adding new camera may be right but the type of cameras and being fined when you haven’t committed an offence sound like complete bollocks.

Did your email come from a reliable source?