Gold Coast Speed Camera Racks up $12k an HOUR !!!

[geckoGT]

Originally Posted by auslandau

Agree ..... It would take umpteen cops on that site to rake in that amount of revenue ..... OR one police car to sit there every second or third day which would stop people from speeding, even if no fines were distributed. Woops .... no money in that. Safer for all but no revenue :(



Confused now .... which line are you taking if the first quote was obvious sarcasm?

Ok, see if this works for you.

Scenario 1 - A person is driving at 15km/h over the speed limit, he sees a cop and slows down (cool, thats safer). Then when he is out of view he puts his foot down again and back to old ways.

Scenario 2 - Same person is driving down the road at 15km/h, like he always does, suddenly flash and he knows a ticket will be in the mail. Now he gets the fine of $200 and 3 demerit points. This makes him angry and he whines about it but it makes him think the next time he is in the car. If he does it again, there is another 3 points, another step in the education of Sir Racealot. If he is a really slow learner and does it 2 more times all within a two year period, he is off the road.

Yes the cop slows people down, yes they are needed, but lets face it there are a lot of people that when they see a cop, may slow down but will speed up again once past. The sad reality is to really teach people to slow down you have to hit them in the hip pocket or take their licence from them, simple.

The reason I still believe a cop is better is due to the fact they can observe and deal with other offences such as failing to give way, failing to indicate, driver inattention and tailgating (all other significant causes of crashes). The problem is they are just too man power intensive for a population that do not want to pay the wages of more cops. What would your veiw be if the government dropped the use of speed cameras and employed more cops to do it the old way? All this would give you more actual cops on the road which you suggest will do a much better job of improving road safety, without those sneaky revenue raising speed cameras. The catch is each motorist now has to pay a $100 levy on their registration to pay for this increase in traffic cops, how much do you like that idea? We then all have to pay because some can not read a speedo, rather than just those that can't read a speedo paying. I'll take the cameras thanks and keep my money in my pocket, I haven't recieved a fine from a camera in 10years, why should I start paying now?

[Flaming Mo]

Originally Posted by geckoGT

The other option for monitoring vehicle speeds, the cop sitting there with a radar gun, pulls over one car for speeding. While he is doing this he has 30 other drivers drive past over the speed limit thinking "cool he can't get me, he is busy". Yeah that is so effective too.

Looking at qld roads, I have found this interesting statistic.



This is a fact that I found in the report reviewing the road traffic crashes in QLD for 2003.

For full details
http://www.transport.qld.gov.au/reso...rt_2003_V2.pdf

Now before you all start carrying on, of course there were improvements in other factors such as reduction in BAC to 0.05, RBT, road condition, driver education, better vehicle safety etc. But you have to admit that the better policing of speed limits has to have contributed to this reduction in road tolls within QLD.

If you disagree, find some hard stats that prove otherwise. As for the efforts done so far not doing anything and it being purely a "revenue raising" exercise, seems unlikely when you look at fact and not just opinion of the lay person.

What you and the government fail to mention is that this reduction was achieved by 1998, prior to the introduction of speed cameras and using previous policing methods. Since then we have seen a slight increase and plateau of road fatality figures. Below is a link to Qld transports own graphs (refer page 4)

http://www.transport.qld.gov.au/reso...y_Strategy.pdf

Interestingly, the figures also contradict your earlier viewpoint that speed cameras have slowed the motoring public, resulting in less casualties for you to deal with. The Qld figures seem to show an alarming increase in hospitalisations from road trauma starting in the late nineties, both for actual admissions and on a per population ratio.

These Qld figures only go to 2002, so below is a link for National statistics up to 2005 which also shows the same trend of an increase of serious injury as a result of road trauma. I could not find figures past 2005.

http://www.infrastructure.gov.au/roa...casualties.pdf

[Flaming Mo]

Originally Posted by geckoGT

The reason I still believe a cop is better is due to the fact they can observe and deal with other offences such as failing to give way, failing to indicate, driver inattention and tailgating (all other significant causes of crashes). The problem is they are just too man power intensive for a population that do not want to pay the wages of more cops. What would your veiw be if the government dropped the use of speed cameras and employed more cops to do it the old way? All this would give you more actual cops on the road which you suggest will do a much better job of improving road safety, without those sneaky revenue raising speed cameras. The catch is each motorist now has to pay a $100 levy on their registration to pay for this increase in traffic cops, how much do you like that idea? We then all have to pay because some can not read a speedo, rather than just those that can't read a speedo paying. I'll take the cameras thanks and keep my money in my pocket, I haven't recieved a fine from a camera in 10years, why should I start paying now?

I agree with you that speed cameras have their place, only I believe they should be kept to multi lane 100k+ zones where conventional police vehicle intercepts can be dangerous or impractical.

The physical police presence on the side of the road may not fill the government coffers like a speed camera does, however it allows police to perform traffic enforcement duties as well as other important aspects of policing.

A speed camera does not immediately - perform breath tests, arrest drink drivers, check licence details, arrest disqualified drivers, check for unregistered cars, false plates, check drivers / passengers for outstanding warrants, locate stolen vehicles, locate drugs / stolen property in intercepted vehicles, arrest wanted criminals (just to name a few).

Using a price justification for the support of speed cameras reminds me of those new self serve do it yourself checkouts at Big W. Sure, it might save on wages, but the service just ain’t as good.

As for a population not wanting their tax dollars to pay for more police, I would suggest that this is one area that the public do want their tax dollars directed. But I see you don’t want to pay because you haven’t got a ticket in ten years. Well I haven’t used an ambulance in 37 years. Can I have all my quarterly ambulance levies back please?

[snappy]

On the princess hwy today there was a fella in a vs commodore doing at least 160-170kph dating across 3 lanes and back again just to navigate through traffic .
An then up comes the bridge with the speed camera . He slams on the brakes passes at the posted limit an straight back on the gas . If anyone can tell me how this speed camera made my driving expierence any safer i would love to hear it.
An Flappist is right even if he did slow down and got the fine what was gonna stop him in the mean time.