Speed Camera News Cameras focus on money not deaths
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/cameras-focus-on-money-not-deaths/story-fn6bm90q-1225969483778
Cameras focus on money not deaths
Rosie Squires From: The Sunday Telegraph December 12, 2010 12:00AM I
Source: The Daily Telegraph
IT RIPS $6 million a year in speeding fines out of motorists, making it the NSW Government's No.1 weapon in enforcing its mantra: speed cameras save lives.
But The Sunday Telegraph can reveal the state's most lucrative speed camera in Cleveland St, Moore Park, is located -- not at an accident black-spot -- but on a stretch of road where there were just five accidents, none of them fatal, in the three years before it was installed in 2007.
And in evidence directly contradicting Government claims speed cameras are road safety measures, not revenue-raisers, 10 of the state's highest-grossing fixed speed cameras are at locations that did not record a single fatality in the three years before they were installed.
Yet the Government has failed to install permanent cameras on dangerous stretches where lives are lost and hundreds of crashes are recorded.
Roads Minister David Borger said they were introduced to reduce fatalities in black-spots. "Criteria are based on crash and injury rates and travelling speeds, which ensure they are installed on 'black lengths' -- lengths of road with a high crash rate," his spokeswoman said.
But statistics from the RTA obtained by The Sunday Telegraph showed the busy stretch of road covered by the Cleveland St eastbound and westbound cameras, set up in November 2007, recorded only four injuries in five accidents in the previous three years.
Last financial year the cameras, between South Dowling St and Anzac Parade, collected a whopping $6,158,511 for the Government and this year they have already clocked 11,930 motorists, grossing $1,568,520 between July 1 and October 31.
Other locations which did not have a single fatality in the three years prior to cameras being installed were Great Western Highway, Parramatta ($1.9m in fines), the Pacific Highway, Woodburn ($1.1m), King Georges Rd, Beverly Hills ($1.1m), plus Parramatta Rd, Auburn; Botany Rd, Rosebery; Princes Highway, Kogarah; Hume Highway, Bankstown; and Spit Rd, Mosman.
But a stretch of the M4 in Silverwater, which was the site of 135 crashes between 2006 and 2007 remains camera-free.
"This confirms what the motorists across NSW have suspected -- the Keneally Labor Government considers fixed speed cameras a revenue-raising machine," Shadow Roads Minister Andrew Stoner said.
An RTA spokesperson said the Cleveland St camera had reduced the number of injuries from four to one in three years.
But at King Georges Rd, Beverly Hills, there has been a rise in crashes since the installation of the camera in 2007, which reaps $1 million a year. The RTA said although there was a higher number of crashes, the injuries had decreased.
Mr Borger said he was confident in the value of cameras. "Speed kills. This Government will continue to do all it can to drive down the toll," he said.
(Ban the Cams note: YOU MEAN LIE DON'T YA RTA!
If speed kills I would have been dead back in the 80s! I it is going to fast for conditions that kill, not a number sign on the side of the road.)
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