NSW GOVERNMENT INCREASES HOURS FOR MOBILE SPEED CAMERAS 28 October 2014 - Record numbers of motorists are being caught by mobile speed cameras after the state governments seven-fold increase in the amount of hours they operate on NSW roads. From July 2014, the cameras have been snapping speeding drivers for a total of 7000 hours per month at 640 different locations. In 2013, the states 45 mobile cameras, mounted on the back of vans and station wagons, only operated for a total of 930 hours per month. Figures from the Office of State Revenue show that between June and August 2014, the amount collected in speeding fines from mobile cameras jumped from about $1.18 million to $1.67 million per month. The number of fines leapt from 4732 in June to more than 6600 in August. The governments Centre for Road Safety general manager Marg Prendergast confirmed that the expanded mobile speed camera program has operated at 7000 hours of enforcement per month since July 2014. The centres NSW speed camera performance review for 2014, released last week, stated that the cameras operated approximately 930 hours of enforcement per month as at 31 December 2013. Prendergast said that the cameras are now used at 640 locations, covering about 6000km of the road network. Mobile speed camera locations will soon be expanded to other areas based on crash risk to maximise the road safety benefits of the program, she said. Roads minister Duncan Gay said that mobile speed cameras would be operating at about 2500 locations for 7000 hours per month by July 2013. Labor roads spokesman Michael Daley said that the Liberals were addicted to revenue-raising through driving fines. The NRMA said that measures were needed to bring the road toll down and mobile speed cameras was one of them. As operation hours go up, we want the government to be strategic about how it uses them, spokesman Peter Khoury said. If they put one in a location and it keeps booking people, then the government needs to look at other solutions to make the road safer. CARR Comments The sheer hypocrisy, disinformation and blatant lying that emanates from politicians and their stooges is simply mindblowing. For starters, NSW Labor roads spokesman Michael Daley accused the Liberals of being addicted to revenue-raising from driving fines. This clown was part of the NSW Labor government that was in power for 16 years and which introduced all those revenue-raising speed and red light cameras to the state. Now that Daley is in opposition, he hypocritically criticises the Liberals, who are merely continuing the Labor tradition of ripping people off. The NRMA, an organisation that should be protecting motorists, especially its members, from these blatant ripoffs, is now complicit in the scam by advocating the use of mobile speed cameras. CARR has contacted NRMA and challenged this organisation to provide evidence which showed that one single fixed or mobile camera stopped an accident or saved a life. The NRMA could not do that. The same went for Duncan Gay, who also could not produce one single example where a speed or red light camera saved one life. As for Marg Prendergast, she said that the expanded mobile speed camera program has operated at 7000 hours of enforcement per month since July 2014. How the hell can she say that this mobile speed camera scam is enforcement? This is utter crap. Enforcement means preventing an offence or dealing immediately with an offender. Mobile speed cameras allow speeders to whiz past at any speed, but they do not stop them from continuing, just ping them for the purpose of fining them. This is not enforcement, merely entrapment to raise revenue from fines. Anything that Prendergast seems to say propagates the NSW government ripoff scam and she should be completely ignored, as she is just a government stooge. The whole speed and red light camera regime is merely about raking in revenue from motorists, who are now considered to be prime cash cows for cash-strapped governments. Motorists make easy targets because people need to drive and the artificially low speed limits and other restrictions incite them to speed and thus get booked. The same goes for other offences, such as driving while touching a mobile phone, which is not dangerous in the least, but it is an easy thing for cops to spot and book motorists. We drove for a solid decade with our mobile phones in our hands without a problem until state governments latched onto their racket of demonising this practice, making it illegal and then fining people as a way of making more money. The one thing to note is the correlation between road fatalities and the deployment of more cameras and more hours for mobile cameras. Has the road toll reduced because of this? The short answer is that although more cameras have been deployed, the road toll has not decreased. In other words, those cameras have done nothing to save lives and are merely there to raise revenue. If those cameras were effective, the road toll would have reduced in approximately the same proportion as the cameras were increased, but that did not happen. The real reason for the reduction in road fatalities has nothing to do with speed and red light cameras. It has everything to do with safer cars that are equipped with features such as anti-lock braking, traction control, dynamic stability control, electronic brake-force distribution, emergency brake assist, multiple airbags, pyrotechnic seatbelt tensioners, body crumple zones and many other safety features. Those are the factors that save lives in accidents, not cameras that take happy snaps so that governments can raise revenue. The main thing to understand is that politicians and their stooges are liars and scammers when it comes to motorists and their money and they seem to stoop to any means to rip that money off. Thanks to Dave Trotter for this item.
Posted on: Sun, 07 Dec 2014 11:25:00 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015