New Police Stats.

[wkid_one]

4 words guys - Law of Diminishing Returns - the road toll can't continue to fall with a growing population, increasing vehicle registrations and an ageing population!

[marty]

ageing and immigrating......

[What?]

Excellent observation Wkid.
Spud: Lou is dead right about Waitakere council wanting to run it's own speed cameras - they are lobbying govt on this at present.

[spudchucka]

Excellent observation Wkid.
Spud: Lou is dead right about Waitakere council wanting to run it's own speed cameras - they are lobbying govt on this at present.

I'll take your word for it. I don't live up there so am not aware of what your local councils are up to. I'll agree that local bodies are heavily intent on snatching money from whatever sources they can and I think letting them run speed cameras would be a big mistake. That sort of thing should be solely the domain of the police or some other central govt organisation.

[spudchucka]

Only 15% of drivers travell at 11 km/h or more over the limit? Couldn't have been surveyed in Auckland.

Lou, in regards to the 85th percentile I went back and plucked the Auckland, Northland and Waikato survey results for you.

Mean open road speeds (km/h)
Region 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002
Northland 97.9 99.0 99.1 98.2 96.3 96.3
Auckland 100.0 102.5 101.0 101.9 102.2 100.5
Waikato 101.6 102.6 101.0 100.2 99.4 97.2

85th percentile open road speeds (km/h)

Region 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002
Northland 110 112 110 109 105 105
Auckland 114 117 116 116 116 113
Waikato 111 112 110 108 107 104


Mean urban speeds (km/h)
Region 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002
Northland 55.9 55.6 55.1 54.2 54.5 53.0
Auckland 59.2 57.9 58.2 57.7 57.5 56.3
Waikato 56.2 57.3 57.6 56.7 55.8 55.2


85th percentile urban speeds (km/h)
Region 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002
Northland 62.0 61.5 62.0 60.0 61.0 59.0
Auckland 66.0 65.0 65.0 64.0 63.0 62.0
Waikato 63.0 64.0 64.5 63.0 61.5 61.0


Again the links to the survey results are here:
http://www.ltsa.govt.nz/research/speed2.html
http://www.ltsa.govt.nz/research/speed1.html

I guess the results do show higher speeds in Auckland. It would be interesting to know where the survey was conducted however.

[spudchucka]

Here's some more stuff for folks to consider.

Road Policing Statistics
Length of road in New Zealand: 91,000km
Number of licensed drivers: 2.52 million
Number of registered motor vehicles: 2.9 million
Number of Highway Patrol officers: 225
Time spent highway patrolling p.a: 32,049 days
Number of Traffic Offence Notices issued last year:
1.1 million
Number of crashes attended by Police in one year:
36,084 - about 100 every day
Annual Road Policing Budget: $196.4 million
Road Policing as proportion of Police budget: 22%

How do we compare?
Deaths per 10,000 vehicles (2001/02)
Sweden 1.1
Norway 1.0
UK 1.2
Australia 1.4
New Zealand 1.5
USA 1.9
France 2.3

Deaths per 100,000 population (2001/02)
Sweden 6.2
Norway 6.1
UK 6.1
Australia 9.0
New Zealand 10.3
France 13.8


Per 10,000 vehicles NZ isn't too bad compared to other countries but per 100,000 of population we are crap.

[Lou Girardin]

It's because we have a lot of vehicles for our size. Still haven't heard the deaths per 100,000 km's figure. The LTSA doesn't seem to release it much either.

[spudchucka]

It's because we have a lot of vehicles for our size. Still haven't heard the deaths per 100,000 km's figure. The LTSA doesn't seem to release it much either.

I've been looking but haven't found those figures. Is it deaths per 100K of kms travelled or deaths per 100K of actual roading that you are after?

[What?]

I'll agree that local bodies are heavily intent on snatching money from whatever sources they can and I think letting them run speed cameras would be a big mistake..

Mate, I reckon even Lou at his cynical best would agree on that!!

[spudchucka]

I think anyone who isn't a local body official out to squeeze funds from their townsfolk would agree that it is a bad idea.

[spudchucka]

Interesting on TV3 news tonight the LTSA / Police are claiming the anywhere - anytime speed camera campaign is having an impact on the road toll. April and May 2004 have apparently been record low months for road deaths. Personally i think that 2 months worth of low road tolls is a bit premature to claim the new campaign is responsible but good on them anyway. It will be interesting to see how the subsequent months pan out.

[MikeL]

I'll agree that local bodies are heavily intent on snatching money from whatever sources they can and I think letting them run speed cameras would be a big mistake. That sort of thing should be solely the domain of the police or some other central govt organisation.

Three questions:

1 Why do you assume that local bodies would be in it for the revenue gathering but the police (at whatever level) are not motivated by this?

2 Why, if speed cameras are good in that they reduce average speeds and therefore deaths and injuries, should we not applaud the local bodies for contributing to road safety?

3 Leaving aside the revenue gathering question, what other compelling reason is there to support a police or central government monopoly on speed cameras? Is there any doubt that the local authorities would be any less competent, professional or honest than the police?

[spudchucka]

1 Why do you assume that local bodies would be in it for the revenue gathering but the police (at whatever level) are not motivated by this?

I'm making that comment as a rate payer - nothing else. Local bodies will reap the benefit of any revenue they gather from speed cameras whereas the police don't receive any financial benefit from speed cameras.

2 Why, if speed cameras are good in that they reduce average speeds and therefore deaths and injuries, should we not applaud the local bodies for contributing to road safety?

If they were motivated by a desire to lower the road toll then they are to be applauded. I simply can't see that as being the councils "main" reason for wanting to be involved. If the revenue colected went to central govt coffers and not to the local bodies then I would have no problem with them operating speed cameras as long as they had properly trained people to operate the devices.

3 Leaving aside the revenue gathering question, what other compelling reason is there to support a police or central government monopoly on speed cameras? Is there any doubt that the local authorities would be any less competent, professional or honest than the police?

I think I've answered this one above. So long as the authority operating the cameras does not receive any direct financial benefit from the revenue gathered, (other than to pay wages and cover operating costs) and they are properly trained and auditable then I see no problem. This isn't the impression I got when first reading the post mentioning the council wanting to be involved. Its just my opinion that cameras should be left as the domain of a central govt agency, which for the time being is the police.

[riffer]

Interesting on TV3 news tonight the LTSA / Police are claiming the anywhere - anytime speed camera campaign is having an impact on the road toll. April and May 2004 have apparently been record low months for road deaths. Personally i think that 2 months worth of low road tolls is a bit premature to claim the new campaign is responsible but good on them anyway. It will be interesting to see how the subsequent months pan out.

Very difficult to claim that particularly as they compare figures against last year only, when we had an abnormal amount of multiple fatalities in a single incident crashes.

If they could show a sustainable trend over 2-3 years then I would start to believe them.

Speed cameras as such have not slowed me down one little bit.

However HP with lasers have slowed me down hugely.

[spudchucka]

Very difficult to claim that particularly as they compare figures against last year only, when we had an abnormal amount of multiple fatalities in a single incident crashes.

If they could show a sustainable trend over 2-3 years then I would start to believe them.

Speed cameras as such have not slowed me down one little bit.

However HP with lasers have slowed me down hugely.

I agree with you, I'm not a supporter of speed cameras at all but highly visible HP enforcement does have an effect. The news report was claiming that over the last two months the toll has taken a huge dip, (and it has) and was attributing this dip to the fact that speed cameras are now anywhere - anytime. They were comparing it to the previous three months of 2004 not to the same months last year.