Speeding? Expect a warning before the fine

Peter, always good to talk to you.

So we're talking about the story people at getting letters in the mail, mysterious speeding letters.

What is this? Is this a scam? No, it's not.

And look it's one of the things the NMA fought for was if you're going to introduce a new speed camera at a location, you need to notify the community and you also need to have a period of sending.

Out warning letters to people who have driven.

Past that location and we're speeding because often these cameras go into locations that people aren't familiar with. Sometimes they go into locations where the speed limit has changed, and in the case of the trial of four point to point or average speed locations, for the first time ever,

As you say, people don't know it's there.

Absolutely, people don't know what's there.

So a really good example is the roseland to change, which is what some of the media have commented on this week. So that's a location in a tunnel, so there's not a warning sign in front of the camera. It's somewhere in the tunnel. You don't know where, and it can be confusing for a lot of drivers. It's a new road, it's a new part of the tunnel. Some part of it is sixty, some part is ninety.

In some that's a new road.

In some cases where we've seen they put a camera in a road where they change the speed limit and thousands and thousands of people are getting fined because you know, locals didn't know they changed the speed limit, and we wanted to put an end to that.

Yeah, and oftentimes you don't know whether or not you're actually speeding if you go through the tunnel. A good example of that is if you suddenly look down and you realize you're five k's over, or in the case of the motorbike, if you want to get past someone to save your life and you have to do that, so you've got to go five k's over the speed limit. Does it give you that lee way or was it as soon as it's picked you up and you're speeding there and then you get yourself the fine.

Look, there is some leeway.

There has to be because a dometer readings are not accurate, and the cameras to a millimeter of your life aren't accurate either, So there's a disconnect between what your a domitter is telling your speed domitter is telling you sorry, and what the actual camera is picking up.

So there will always be some degree of leeway. You should never get fined doing sixty one in a sixty zone, for example.

The last thing we need is people focused exclusively putting their eyes on the speedometer because they're terrified they're one k over the limit. That's not safe for anybody. So there is a degree of leeway. I don't think the government will actually ever announce how wide that is. But what we tell our members and the community is stick to the speed limit and as best as you know, obviously to the kilometer, and you should be fine.

But if you're in a situation like I mentioned on the bike, where you've suddenly got to speed up in order not to get caught in an accident?

Could you use that as a defense in court? Do you think if it went that.

Far it'd have to be pretty specific?

So, I mean, what you're talking about is an incident where you're about to have an accident where you had to speed up.

I'm not sure how often.

That would happen, and it would all happen right in front of the lens of a camera. So I mean our advice is, you know, if you're at risk, slow down, don't speed up.

Right, And in New South Wales they've got these speed cameras predominantly used for heavy vehicles like trucks and buses, but this trial that's underway for regional areas is now going to include cars and motor bikes as well.

Yeah, that's right.

So the point to point cameras or average speed cameras have been rolled out across New South Wales.

And used for trucks for a number of years.

The government is looking to run a trial, or has been running a trial in four low locations across regional New South Wales to apply those cameras to vehicles, to cars and to bikes. They have also been issuing warning letters to people who drove through those location speedting.

But that all changes on the first of July.

So if you go through that location in your speeding you will get you'll be fine, You'll get demerit points and a monetary fine like you normally would. And the way those cameras work is there's a camera at point A, there's a camera.

At point B.

It works out the average speed between the two, and if you cross those two locations faster than you should, you'll be issued to find Let me.

Ask you this quickly, Well, I've got you.

We talked about this on air the other night that in Adelaide, in some residential areas they're looking at putting the speed limits down to forty kilometers an hour in

And here in lies the challenge, and this is the NMAS you on. This has been consistent from day one, councils should not be arbitrarily changing speed limits in their local area to deem forty k zones or as you mentioned, thirty k zones. Even more so, you need a consistent approach when it comes to putting speed limits, whether they go up or down.

It needs to be evidence based. It needs to be driven by data. And what I mean by that is you need.

To look at the performance of the road the traffic volumes, because that's really important because that gives you a sense of whether you speed should be sixty or seventy or fifty. Keeping in mind skill zones are forty. You need to look at the crash history and it needs to be done over an extended period of time so that you so that the speed is set at the appropriate level

Some roads are really good to drive on, but the speed limits just been dropped with no real explanation.

So that's not what we want. We want consistency when it comes to speed limits. The decision should be evidence based, not arbitrary. And that should apply whether you're putting speed limits up or down. And I consistently say up because in the case of West Connects the speed limits and North Connects the speed limits went up to ninety k an hour off the back of a year's analysis.

To decide whether or not they were safe enough to.

Be ninety or not eighty. That's the approach we should be taking. They're not doing it here, and it's going to lead to pour out.

And also you've got the lack of consistency as well. If you think a road is a certain limit and in the next day it's changed without any warning. Half the time, you don't know, Like you say, if you're moving from variable speed limits from one suburb to the next, it's hard to keep up with which speed limit you're supposed to keep too on your regular drive to work.

The previous government removed warning signs for mobile speed comeras they were finding more people than a month than they were in a year, and overwhelmingly the feedback we got from the public was were guessing the speed limit.

We we didn't know what.

The speed They were putting these things in suburban streets where people were either lived there for years and just thought the speed limit was what it was, or in areas where the speed limits had been adjusted and the cameras were just dropped in without any warning people. You don't want drivers guessing the speed limit, and the more we change speed limits, the more it's the more arbitrary it becomes, where each council just chooses to put whatever