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House of Assembly - Fifty-Third Parliament, Second Session (53-2)
2015-05-13 Daily Xml
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Motions

Speed Detection

Adjourned debate on motion of Mr Wingard:

That this house establish a select committee to inquire into and report upon—

(a) the operation of speed cameras and speed detection devices in South Australia;

(b) the relationship between the location of speed cameras and the incidence of road accidents;

(c) the impact of constantly changing speed limits and the effectiveness of speed limit signage;

(d) the effectiveness and appropriateness of current penalties for speeding offences, including a review of fines imposed;

(e) the operation of the Community Road Safety Fund; and

(f) any related matters.

(Continued from 6 May 2015.)

Mr SPEIRS (Bright) (11:27): I would like to return this morning to my remarks on the government's apparent lack of a policy framework to guide decision-making around the placement of speed cameras. Earlier, I mentioned the specific example of the government's refusal to look at a fixed red-light camera at the foot of Ocean Boulevard at Seacliff and Seacliff Park, outside Seacliff Primary School. I recounted how the students of Ms Dittmar's year 1/2 class had written to me directly, outlining their concerns about the safety of their school crossing, their numerous near misses and the school's constant fear that nothing will happen until someone is seriously injured or, worse, killed at the crossing.

This section of road, where Ocean Boulevard meets Brighton Road, has upward of 40,000 vehicles passing through it every day. It is at the foot of a hill and has the busy Scholefield Road intersection immediately to the south of it. It is a dangerous stretch of road. Our meeting with the Minister for Road Safety, while gratefully received, was light on outcomes and ruled out a red-light camera, with the excuse that the crossing was not dangerous enough. This beggars belief. Are we waiting for a fatality to understand the danger of the crossing before we have enough evidence in order to install suitable safety measures?

My constituents, including the children in Ms Dittmar's class and the Seacliff Primary School governing council led by chair, Jacinta Day, would like to understand why a red-light camera can be placed outside Seaview High School on Seacombe Road (perhaps a very worthy position) but cannot be placed outside Seacliff Primary School. On the face of it, you would think that older secondary school students would be safer on a straight section of road with less vehicle movement than primary school students who have to cross at the base of a steep hill on a busier road.

Is a red-light camera the answer for this crossing? The government and minister seem to think not, but it would be great if they could outline the rationale behind camera placement, rule out revenue raising and commit to real safety outcomes. At the moment, I am afraid that I have no confidence in the government's approach to speed camera placement.

Mr PEDERICK (Hammond) (11:29): I rise to speak to this motion by the member for Mitchell:

That this house establish a select committee to inquire into and report upon—

(a) the operation of speed cameras and speed detection devices in South Australia;

(b) the relationship between the location of speed cameras and the incidence of road accidents;

(c) the impact of constantly changing speed limits and the effectiveness of speed limit signage;

(d) the effectiveness and appropriateness of current penalties for speeding offences, including a review of fines imposed;

(e) the operation of the Community Road Safety Fund; and

(f) any related matters.

I must say there is nothing that causes more debate in the community than speed cameras. We note in recent times that the media make quite a show of telling us where some of these devices will be the next day. Perhaps that was because of public backlash over the number of speed cameras and where they are placed. Certainly, there is no sympathy for people who are constantly caught speeding and, probably, there is no-one in this place who can put up their hand (unless they are a complete saint) who has not been caught for driving a little fast at times.

As a country member (but not a remote country member, who would travel probably about 100,000 kilometres a year, apart from any air travel they need to do), I average somewhere around the 60,000 kilometres a year mark, so I see a lot of what is going on out on the road and certainly notice the changes as they happen. This is something that many members have brought to this place, and the former member for Fisher (Hon. Bob Such) had his own private war on speed cameras, but he also made it a public war.

As I was saying, in my many travels around the state, I can certainly see the changes that have been made over time. I am well aware of mobile speed cameras and where they are set up, and now infra-red cameras are fitted on those vehicles so they can detect you at night. Now we have more cameras that are fixed speed cameras, and coming from home at Coomandook or Murray Bridge there are the cameras at Crafers and Mount Osmond. This relates to the changing speed limits. The speed limits on the down track into the city now are down to 90 km/h and, quite frankly, I do not agree with that, but the limit is what the limit is.

There is supposedly a relationship between the speed that cars can do compared to slowing down trucks to 60 km/h, which I agree with. In fact, I do not think it has gone far enough. I think it probably should be restricted to 40 km/h, but there are probably a lot of people who would argue against that. But, in the interests of safety, I know the best way to manage a truck down a hill is by using a very low gear and, sometimes, these days with trucks that have engines of 650 horsepower, you have to be well below even the gear you would use to climb up a hill.

Be that as it may, there are more fixed cameras in place, and we know there are some in Adelaide. I know there is one not far from this place towards North Adelaide that is quite a revenue earner. South Terrace has been a hot spot for mobile speed cameras and has raised many hundreds of thousands of dollars. Something that has sprung up over recent times is the point-to-point speed cameras; one of the first in my electorate was between Ki Ki and Coonalpyn. It certainly brings to mind the places where speed cameras should be.

I think that is probably a reasonable spot to have a point-to-point camera. However, as I have said in this place before, some of the overtaking lanes there, especially the one just south of Ki Ki is built in the wrong place strictly because they did not want to knock down any native vegetation on a straight. That is another argument but it should have been done because it has, sadly, accounted for at least seven lives, on that overtaking lane. I believe a lot of that is because it is in the wrong place and there is a lot of confusion as to where you should pull in.

There is a whole range of issues that we should be attending to in road safety because, allegedly, speed cameras are about road safety. The interesting thing with point-to-point cameras is that they are like porcupines; they are almost breeding on roads. I know Port Wakefield Road has several sets heading up towards Port Wakefield, and there are some being built on the freeway now. I am not sure if they are activated or not but if someone goes over the limit I am sure that they will let me know.

I get disappointed when I am heading home on the freeway and I go past four, sometimes five mobile speed cameras. This road could quite realistically be a 130 km/h road—no problem at all—and, in fact, you could probably go faster than that. However, for so-called road safety, they will have four or five speed cameras there on a dual-lane road.

I have seen traffic on the freeway on the wrong side of the freeway, going the wrong way. Luckily, I have a CB radio in my car so I can warn the trucks that are coming down towards them and say, 'You'd better watch out; you've got one coming at you.' I noticed there was some dashcam footage the other day on a single lane on the Dukes Highway down towards Bordertown where someone had veered in front of a truck at night. The truck driver managed to get out of the way, but that is another issue more linked to fatigue.

We certainly need an investigation as to where speed cameras are put. We really have to get out to the public the perception of whether these are really for road safety or just about revenue raising. I am afraid that the many thousands of people, in fact millions of people over time, who traverse the South Eastern Freeway certainly believe it to be revenue raising. I am not saying that they should not be in other places but put them where there is likely to be an accident. Do not have them at the bottom of the big dipper on the freeway, or the little dipper for that matter.

It is so obvious that someone who does not have cruise control—which a lot of us rely on now for the many kilometres we do—can just run over one or two kilometres an hour and get picked up. The fines for getting caught certainly are not cheap. If you go less than 10 kilometres over the speed limit you will be fined $159; then it goes up in brackets and between 20 and 20 km/h you will be fined $349; between 20 and 30 km/h it is $709; and between 40 and 50 km/h an hour it is $846. Then there are other fees that go on top of that. It is very expensive if someone makes a very simple error in exceeding the limit by just a small amount. It does not fit with some of our police very well—our hardworking police—when they are perceived as just revenue raisers in this line of work.

Yes, I think speed needs to be managed but it needs to be managed in a way that the people of South Australia do not believe they are just there to fund a bankrupt government's coffers. It must be seen as a proper road safety measure. The police like to tell us that they do not have quotas—they have benchmarks. Well, I reckon a quota and a benchmark is the same thing and certainly that pressure should not be put on the good-serving officers of the South Australian police force, and the government needs to be more transparent about where it places these speed cameras.

Mr WILLIAMS (MacKillop) (11:39): I think there is common belief in the community that the way our roads are policed, particularly with fixed and mobile speed cameras on police cars, is a revenue-raising measure and not a safety measure. I congratulate the shadow minister (the member for Mitchell) for bringing this proposition to the house, because I think a number of things could be done by a select committee to investigate into the matters that he has listed in this motion.

We can either dispel the myth that the policing of our speed laws is a revenue-raising measure or, alternatively, we can highlight the fact that the way we police the roads is, at the very best, capricious and that we can do it better, to ensure that the road safety aspect that we are supposedly trying to achieve is the paramount concern. There are plenty of examples where speed cameras are placed on stretches of road where there are very, very few accidents or a very low accident record, but where it is common for people to go slightly over the speed limit.

One area that comes to mind is just up the road here in King William Road, through the Parklands, between North Terrace and before you get to O'Connell Street. I think it is one of the biggest revenue-raising fixed speed cameras in the state. I go back and forth through that intersection at least twice a day when I am in Adelaide, which is pretty regularly, and I have yet to see an accident there. I have never seen an accident there.

Mr Odenwalder: They are working.

Mr WILLIAMS: 'They are working.' I do not think that is the issue; they are raising literally hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. Let me talk about another part of the state that concerns me. It is also on a section of road that I traverse very regularly, and that is the Princes Highway going down to the South-East. If you drive out of Adelaide, turn right just the other side of Tailem Bend and go down along the Coorong, when you get to Meningie, after travelling all the way at 110 km/h, for the next 60 kilometres the speed limit is 100 km/h. When you get to Salt Creek it goes back up to 110 km/h. There is no difference between the nature of the road in that 60-kilometre stretch and the road either side of it.

The Hon. L.W.K. Bignell: It used to be bad; it was narrow.

Mr WILLIAMS: The Minister for Agriculture says that it used to be bad. I think minister Wright was the transport minister who reduced that speed limit, and I was very active, as were councils in my electorate and a number of citizens, in lobbying the minister to find out why that speed limit was reduced and would he reconsider it? I got a lot of information out of the then highways department on that particular decision as well. One of the pieces of information said, 'The road is relatively narrow and we have an ongoing program to widen the shoulders on each side of the road, and we will review it at the end of that.' That ended years ago and there has never been a review of putting the speed limit back to 110 km/h. It is a nonsense.

I have had a number of conversations with our police constables on that section of road. I have to report to the house that nine times out of 10 the conversations have been effective, from my point of view, and I only have praise for the constabulary. I recall having a conversation with one officer and he said to me, quite frankly, 'I don't know why the speed limit is 100 on this section of road.' He said, 'It's no different than any other section of the road around here that I police and I don't know why it's 100, but it is and I am just applying the law.'

The Hon. L.W.K. Bignell: He said the same thing to me.

Mr WILLIAMS: The minister says he said the same thing to him. I am sure that any number of people who traverse that section of road on a regular basis would have had the same conversation with the same officer. He is a thoroughly decent bloke, but I warn any members, if you are driving to the South-East, he is always there. He is always on that section of road. I very rarely see him north of Meningie, where the speed limit is 110 but, invariably, he is south of Meningie on that 60 km/h section of road. Is that the way that the law should be in South Australia? That is the question I think we should be asking ourselves. Is that a reasonable scenario?

Mr Tarzia: Good bakery.

Mr WILLIAMS: Good bakery! Is it reasonable that we have that situation and we have that police officer doing what he is doing. He is only doing his job, but is that a reasonable thing to do? I have got to tell the house that my constituents, and I am sure the constituents of my colleague from the seat of Mount Gambier would agree, do not think it is reasonable. It is a nonsense, and that is one of the issues that I would like a select committee to look into. I can tell the house that I got a briefing paper out of the department many years ago which said exactly what I have always believed; that is, there is no difference between the condition of the road between Meningie and Salt Creek and the rest of that section of the Princes Highway.

I come to another classic inconsistency. Generally, when I drive out of the city heading south-east, I drive down Glen Osmond Road. So, I turn off of South Terrace, go diagonally across the Parklands and up Glen Osmond Road. The speed limit through the Parklands is 60 km/h. Sometimes, I go down Pulteney Street, and from Pulteney Street to South Terrace to Unley Road. The speed limit is 60 km/h. If you happen to go down King William Street, cross South Terrace and go down to Hyde Park on King William Road, guess what the speed limit is? It is 50 km/h. If you come over the next road, and I am not sure what it is called—Sir Edward Cowan drive or something—it is 50 km/h.

Mr Bell: Edith Cowan?

Mr WILLIAMS: Edith Cowan drive. Yes, I think you are right—Edith Cowan drive. It is 50 km/h. So, there are four roads, basically running parallel to each other, although Glen Osmond Road is not parallel, with completely different speed limits. The condition of the road is no different. The amount of traffic on the road is no different. They both have car parking on both sides. It is an absolute nonsense, and I have paid my share of revenue to RevenueSA because of that nonsense. Again, it is an issue I think a select committee should look at. This is a live issue in the community. These are just two inconsistencies I can give.

Mr Pederick: What about east of Bordertown?

Mr WILLIAMS: Yes, east of Bordertown, I have raised this before. You drive out of Adelaide, you get just past the tollgate, and it is 100 km/h up to the top of the Hills. At Stirling, it gets to 110, and then you can drive all the way to Bordertown at 110, and from Bordertown to the border, guess what? It is 100. That road was rebuilt with commonwealth funds a few years ago, completely rebuilt from Bordertown to the border. I think it was 17 kilometres of road and $15 million of expenditure, and there is a 100 km/h speed limit—that is another nonsense.

It is the same from Penola on the Casterton Road. There are a number of those in my electorate between the towns and the border with the same sort of thing. These issues need to be looked at. In the Mid North, there are all these speed reductions. I think they need to be looked at because I do not think that they are actually giving any benefit to our road accident rate. All they are doing is giving a benefit to the Treasury. I certainly commend the shadow minister for bringing this matter before the house and hope that the members on both sides of the house support it.

Mr BELL (Mount Gambier) (11:49): I too rise to support the member for Mitchell's motion. Let's be clear, there is no doubt that used properly speed cameras can be an effective deterrent to those motorists who break the law. However, there is also general cynicism that speed cameras are used more to raise revenue than to keep our roads safe, and there are a few things that give credence to that cynicism, and one of them is the budget: the government budgets over $80 million a year in revenue from speed cameras, fines and the like. So, having that already budgeted in year in, year out gives some indication as to the value in raising this revenue for the state coffers.

I need to preference the following comment by saying that I have the utmost respect for our local law enforcement officers and the work they do; they are very community-minded people who support me in many ways. It is with regret that I say that, in the South-East, people do come to me and say, 'The Adelaide police are in town targeting speed.' It is not that issue I have a problem with; it is an issue to do with where they set up the speed cameras.

Quite often, they are at the bottom of hills; quite often they are in areas that are not risky roads, they have not had major accidents for a period of time, they are certainly not dangerous roads; they will be in side streets, where the speed limit is 50 km/h, trying to catch people doing 55 km/h. It is those type of issues that concern me with speed cameras in our local area. It also gives our local law enforcement a difficult time. They spend a lot of time building community will and community engagement, and then they have police officers from metropolitan areas coming down, in the community's eyes, just revenue raising from the South-East.

There was an article by News Corp talking about the fact that last year speed cameras along South Terrace earned in excess of $630,000 for the financial year, which is around $177,000 more than any other site and which equates to about $12,000 a week—about the same as Mr Bignell's wage. The problem with this is that South Road does not feature prominently in road crash statistics.

I support the shadow minister for transport in his calling for greater clarity in the way police select camera sites. There is actually a requirement in the guidelines that police consider four years of recent crash data, with specific mention of fatalities and serious injuries, when choosing sites. No South Terrace fatalities were recorded by the Department of Planning, Transport and Infrastructure from 2009 to 2013, yet speed, it is said, remains the number one critical factor for road fatalities in Australia.

Policymakers insist that speed plays a part in about 40 per cent of all road deaths and costs the community billions of dollars each year, yet in the Northern Territory controversial derestriction in speed has not amounted to a single fatality or serious injury in the seven months since it has been operating. The Northern Territory government is now considering extending the trial such has been its success. Since 1 February, there have been no deaths or serious injuries on the 200 kilometre stretch where they have increased the speed limit to what I believe is 140 km/h, but I will double-check that. Two infringement notices have been given, one to somebody who drove through a work zone at a ridiculous speed, and the other to someone who was involved in a rollover that was attributed to drink driving and not speed.

The problem that I have with speed cameras and their location is that they do not provide immediate feedback to the driver and a deterrent for their behaviour. If an accident has occurred due to speed, then receiving a bill in the mail from a speed camera on that stretch of road four weeks after the incident is little use in preventing that actual accident from occurring.

Speeding motorists need immediate intervention, and I have no problem with the police using radar devices followed up with on-the-spot fines to immediately deter speeding motorists. The contributing factors, as far as I am concerned, with the road toll are the quality of the road and the quality of the vehicle, in combination with the attitude of the driver.

The other concern I have with speed cameras is the presumption that the camera is working properly, that it is properly aimed and calibrated, and that the timing of the traffic light has not been adjusted so as to give the motorist insufficient time to react and so on. There may be multiple people involved in the calibration and maintenance, and the settings may have been altered since they were last set properly. It is difficult for the motorist to know this information, and local governments may be slow to recalibrate these devices.

Since tickets or fines are received weeks later, the accused has very limited ability to gather evidence in their defence. This is particularly true of speed cameras that would no longer be in the same location as originally placed. Tickets are issued to the owner of the vehicle, even if they are not the driver. Speed cameras do not remove the worst drivers from our roads the way a police officer can. Drunk drivers, or a person in a stolen vehicle, who might pose an immediate risk to pedestrians or other motorists, just ignore speed cameras completely.

Lastly, speed cameras encourage erratic behaviour. Drivers slow down as they approach a speed camera and then speed up afterwards, and nervous drivers continually look at their speed rather than the road. I support this motion and commend the shadow minister for transport for bringing it to the house's attention.

The Hon. T.R. KENYON (Newland) (11:57): I am rising to oppose the motion today, for a number of reasons, but I am very interested—

An honourable member: Unbelievable.

The Hon. T.R. KENYON: It is not really; you know it is not. The premise behind the motion is that speed cameras have no real effect on road safety and that in fact they are just set for revenue raising; that is what they are set for. There is so much evidence, not just from Australia but from around the world, that speed cameras reduce the road toll, and in areas where fixed cameras are placed they have been determined to reduce fatalities and serious injury crashes by 20 per cent. Conversely, when they are taken away—and there are experiences around the world and in Australia where fixed speed cameras have been removed—serious injury crashes and fatalities have been shown to go up by about 20 per cent.

The CASR, the Centre for Automotive Safety Research right here in Adelaide, part of the University of Adelaide, or working in conjunction with the University of Adelaide, and also Monash University in Victoria have both shown through extensive research that speed cameras are effective in reducing road tolls.

Also we have our own experience, the idea that somehow speed does not contribute. Underlying a lot of the contributions from members opposite is this idea that there are some areas where you can speed and it is okay to speed. It is couched in terms of 'You could go faster; the speed limit could be raised.' Essentially what they are saying is that, when there is a speed limit here, it is okay to speed here because it is safer; it is safer to speed here, it is alright.

Members interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!

The Hon. T.R. KENYON: Just tell me when you want me to seek leave to continue my remarks.

Mr Pederick: Have you got 68?

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: You will not have to seek leave, because the book is already drawn up and I am calling the member for Hammond to order. You can continue right now.

The Hon. T.R. KENYON: Thank you. The idea that speed is safe is wrong, and it is shown to be wrong throughout the history of our road toll in South Australia.

Mr Pederick interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member for Hammond is warned for the first time; so early in the day.

Mr Pederick interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: You have ignored me twice; it is not just me you are being rude to—it is the house.

Mr Goldsworthy: Disgraceful!

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: And the member for Kavel is called to order as well.

The Hon. T.R. KENYON: I seek leave to continue my remarks.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.

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