All NSW mobile speed cameras are offline & decommissioned

[Dave_au]

Allegedly all NSW MOBILE speed cameras are offline, as reported in the SMH today:

Pupils left exposed as speed cams go

THEY were meant to be a critical plank in the state's strategy to reduce speeding in school zones, but not one mobile speed camera remains on the road because the technology is worn out and the Government has failed to upgrade it.

In 2006 the then NSW minister for roads, Eric Roozendaal, promised that a combination of 50 fixed and mobile speed cameras would be installed and rotated through NSW schools, and he warned that "any school could have a camera in it".

He later backed away from the pledge, and about 25 vehicle-mounted cameras were gradually decommissioned by police as they broke down. The last cameras were shelved last November.

The Government refused to replace the 13-year-old wet film cameras despite their proven record as a deterrent, and even though a report by the Roads and Traffic Authority recommended it introduce a fleet of new digital cameras in unmarked vans.

The commander of the police traffic services branch, Acting Superintendent David Evans, said the cameras were "past their use-by date" and no longer a good use of his officers' time.

"We'd got to the point that if we were going to continue mobile speed operations we were going to need more modern equipment … capable of providing evidence that we could use in court," Acting Superintendent Evans said.

"The parts and film were getting hard to find and the cameras were phased out over a period of time. All of the cameras we have are now deregistered and past their certification date."

Acting Superintendent Evans said police had increased their use of other enforcement methods to compensate for the loss of the mobile cameras, and that the state's low road toll last year proved this was working.

However, the mobile cameras have proven to be an effective deterrent in Victoria and Queensland, and the State Government never told the public that they would be phased out.

The truth was discovered by a request for information about speeding fines in school zones by the Pedestrian Council of Australia using freedom-of-information laws.

It revealed that the number of people caught speeding in the state's 10,000 school zones by mobile speed cameras dwindled throughout last year, and that not one detection was recorded in term four.

The removal of the mobile cameras has left schools policed by the 70 fixed speed cameras that cover less than 2 per cent of school zones, and other policing methods such as radar and speed guns, which road safety experts say are less effective because they do not take pictures.

The president of the council, Harold Scruby, said: "The FOI is a damning indictment of the Government's contempt for the safety of our children.

"The schools that don't have fixed cameras must rely on occasional one-off bookings using antiquated radar technology. That means children in 95 per cent of school zones are not safe. There is absolutely no excuse for the Government not to immediately replace the mobile cameras."

But the Minister for Police, Tony Kelly, and the Minister for Roads, Michael Daley, said they had no plans to buy new speed cameras.

"This has not impacted on our capacity to enforce speed restrictions because we have ample radars and lidars [vehicle mounted radars] to do the job," a spokesman for Mr Kelly said.

Professor Max Cameron of Monash University's accident research centre said the Government lacked the political will to police speeding effectively.

"The evidence from Victoria and Queensland is that mobile speed cameras reduce fatal crashes, but the NSW Government has ignored it."

As usual our favorate bleeding hearts make an appearence, but what really has got me going is the fact that despite the lack of cameras, our road toll has been the lowest it's been in years, and now they're complaining about the lack of mobile camera cars!