NZTA speed cameras

[SaferRides]

Not sure if this link to the Herald will work?

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/nzta-t...K6FCK66IZUGJU/


Sent from my SM-S938B using Tapatalk

[FLUB]

Those trailers look good and I'm sure they can be "repurposed"

Sent from my Pixel 8 using Tapatalk

[MarkW]

Those trailers look good and I'm sure they can be "repurposed"

Sent from my Pixel 8 using Tapatalk

Or "accidentally bumped" off line so that they are facing the bushes on the side of the road.

[pete376403]

Or "accidentally bumped" off line so that they are facing the bushes on the side of the road.

Or just set on fire ("gatsoed" with a few old tyres). So the idea of having them unattended won't last too long. If NZTA want to play this way, then naturally opponents will similarly escalate.

[SaferRides]

I struggle to see the logic in this now that fixed cameras are signposted. Are speed cameras meant to reduce speeds or catch speeding drivers?

I followed a car past the fixed camera south of Kaiwaka on SH1. He was doing about 85, then slowed down to 75 before the camera. So I overtook him at 100!

Sent from my SM-S938B using Tapatalk

[F5 Dave]

Slow down Rossi

[rastuscat]

I struggle to see the logic in this now that fixed cameras are signposted. Are speed cameras meant to reduce speeds or catch speeding drivers?

I followed a car past the fixed camera south of Kaiwaka on SH1. He was doing about 85, then slowed down to 75 before the camera. So I overtook him at 100!

Sent from my SM-S938B using Tapatalk

When cameras were introduced in 1993 I was present at the meeting where sites were discussed for the Auckland City area. Sites were selected on a black-spot basis i.e. where crashes had built up a history of happening. Those sites were signposted, and the cameras had to be operated in those sites. Mobile GPS wasn't a thing back then, so the site was always "such-and-such road between such-and-such point and such-and-such point" . That way, when a pic was taken, the location was known. Some sites were quite long, some quite short.

Over time, it became known that as long as you weren't in one of those sites, you didn't have to trouble yourself about slowing down. In fact, it almost had the opposite effect, as most roads in NZ weren't speed camera sites.

Some people who got snapped defended their tickets on the basis that there was no sign, so the ticket shouldn't count. No mention of the fact that they had exceeded the speed limit. This is a point I'll cover again later. Any number of signs ended up decorating student flats, along with the collection of stop signs, give way signs and ducks crossing signs.

Fast forward 30 or so years, and now NZTA is taking the cameras away from Police, and an external contractor is taking the photos. NZTA will still issue the tickets, but the photos are being taken by an external contractor. Google "Acusensus" if you want to know who. And the government has announced that fixed cameras will be signposted, but that mobile cameras won't.

I don't have inside info these days like I did back when, but I'd be surprised if the equipment in the trailers or vehicles hasn't got a military grade GPS which can tell us exactly where the photo was taken. Thus the restriction of having to be within a specific site is no longer applicable. The fixed cameras are, um, fixed, so won't be moving. It's going to be easy to signpost them, they don't move.

But the mobile operations are able to be used anywhere. If it is decided that they will be only used in specific locations, it's to make people feel better. It'll be to prevent the whines about "awwww, it's not fair". There's still a belief that speed cameras should only be used in black spots, regardless of how much of a populist red herring that actually is.

Thing is, most serious and fatal crashes happen where no crash has happened before. They are random. Yes, there are some places where the coincidences align, but there are many many more places where no such crash has happened before. For those places with high crash issues, infrastructure changes are indicated.

Speed causes some crashes. But its often not the primary causitive factor, most often. However, if stuff goes wrong for any reason at all, the speed at which it goes wrong determines the outcome.

Those who advocate for higher speeds often tell us that the real problems are awful drivers and awful roads. In the next breath they suggest that we should increase speed limits, without realising that what thet are saying is that we shoulkd let awful drivers go faster on awful roads.

This all plays to deterrence theory. In terms of risk, you can target

1. High risk individuals
2. High risk locations
3. High risk behaviours

If you target individuals, you may prevent those individuals from coming to grief, but it doesn't do much for anyone else.
If you target locations when you only have so many resources, you can only be in so many places. It's not actually that practical in terms of geographical spread.
But if you target specific behaviours, it has a broader effect long term.

It's the behaviours that are the problem. Crashes happen in a vast multitude of locations. If those crashes happened at lower speeds, they would be less serious.

Sure, it'd be great if less crashes happened because roads are awesome and drivers are all competent. But until that happens, keeping speeds down is one of the levers that can be applied.

Ironically, those who slow from 85 to 75 in 100 kmh areas wouldn't slow down if they didn't know the camera was there. So hiding the cameras would solve that problem. But I'm sure that not what we want.

The overall summary here is that as long as you don't exceed speed limits (and I propose that this is a good idea for a range of reasons) the presence of cameras just doesn't matter, signposted or not.

[R650R]

Those trailers look good and I'm sure they can be "repurposed"

Sent from my Pixel 8 using Tapatalk

British version looks slightly different

[rastuscat]

[QUOTE=R650R;1131236617]British version looks slightly different



Bloke who made that had me until he carped on about revenue generating. As if it causes people to use their phone, speed up, or take their seatbelt off.

[R650R]

[QUOTE=rastuscat;1131236618]

British version looks slightly different



Bloke who made that had me until he carped on about revenue generating. As if it causes people to use their phone, speed up, or take their seatbelt off.

He’s normally pretty sensible in his rants, a bit Jeremy Clarkson he’s prob just catering to audience in populist manner. He’s bit late to the party if worried about surveillance in UK, only China out does them.

[SaferRides]

Rastuscat, I agree with some of your lengthy reply but not all. The reason people slow down when they pass a speed camera sign, or see a police car with flashing lights on the road shoulder is because they don't know what speed they are travelling at. I see it all of the time on the Waikato Expressway. So the chances of them driving at safe speeds are very remote until they actually know how fast they are going.

Getting a ticket for speeding in a place where they don't even know what speed they are doing will just piss them off.



Sent from my SM-S938B using Tapatalk

[rastuscat]

Getting a ticket for speeding in a place where they don't even know what speed they are doing will just piss them off.

Sent from my SM-S938B using Tapatalk

I guess it'll cause them to focus a bit more on their speed for at least a while. Isn't that the point?

[F5 Dave]

Approaching Petone going south it is common for me to overtake a car and then as we go into the 80kph for them to repass me.
Then as we approach the corner to swap again.

[nerrrd]

Same on the Auckland motorway, slowing down for the 80kph areas can be a dangerous manoeuvre.

And in the CBD, sticking to the 30kph limit makes me a rolling obstacle for most cyclists and scooter riders.

35 extra cameras seems like a drop in a very large bucket.

[rastuscat]

35 extra cameras seems like a drop in a very large bucket.

The previous government had a plan to increase the number of cameras to around 800. New government, new plan.