Massive change on roads after new Aussie speed cameras rolled out

Drivers appear to be responding to new average speed cameras in NSW exactly as authorities had hoped. Source: TfNSW/NSW Speed Camera Locations/Facebook

Average speed cameras in New South Wales appear to be having the intended effect. Data from a nine-week trial period shows drivers responding as authorities had hoped, before the cameras at the two locations were switched from trial to enforcement mode this month.

Motorists were warned that fines of up to $2,959 for light vehicles and the loss of six demerit points would be enforced should they be caught exceeding the speed limit at those spots. 

The cameras are positioned on two key routes: The Pacific Highway, along a 15 km stretch between Kew and Lake Innes on the NSW Mid North Coast; and on the Hume Highway, along a 16 km stretch between Coolac and Gundagai in the state's south. 

This week, after reviewing the latest data transport authorities confirmed to Yahoo News that speeding dropped by an incredible 38 per cent, on average, across the two locations throughout the nine-week monitoring period, despite no threat of fines. It means that drivers were taking notice and slowing down anyway. 

"There’s already been a big drop in speeding at both sites," the state government said, adding that all money from fines (speeding, red lights, phones, seatbelts) goes into the Community Road Safety Fund, which supports road safety programs across NSW.

Average speed cameras were switched into enforcement mode in NSW on July 1. Source: NRMA/NSW Government

Experts say average speed cameras are one of the most effective tools for reducing speeding-related crashes. Also known as point-to-point cameras, they work by calculating a vehicle’s average speed over a monitored road section rather than capturing it at a single point. They record a vehicle’s entry and exit times at two points, then calculate whether the average speed exceeds the limit.

These are the only average speed cameras in NSW to date that will lead to fines for light vehicles; all other locations around the state monitor the speed of heavy vehicles only.

The technology has proved effective in other developed nations, including the UK, Norway, Italy and the Netherlands, and their use has also been adopted in other Australian states in recent times. 

In an earlier update at the end of June, Transport for NSW reported that by the end of the seventh week in the trial period, there had been a 48 per cent "improvement in behaviour" on the Pacific Highway with the number of light vehicle drivers detected speeding dropping to one in every 235.

An improvement of 37 per cent was seen on the Hume Highway, where the figure dropped to one in every 194. Now, by the end of the entire nine-week testing period, the collective decrease sits at 38 per cent, showing that the figures remain steady. 

This article originally appeared on Yahoo News Australia at https://au.news.yahoo.com/massive-change-on-roads-after-new-aussie-speed-cameras-rolled-out-043452819.html

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