Speaker 1: Peter, always good to talk to you.
Speaker 2: So we're talking about the story people at getting letters
Speaker 2: in the mail, mysterious speeding letters.
Speaker 1: What is this? Is this a scam? No, it's not.
Speaker 3: And look it's one of the things the NMA fought
Speaker 3: for was if you're going to introduce a new speed
Speaker 3: camera at a location, you need to notify the community
Speaker 3: and you also need to have a period of sending.
Speaker 4: Out warning letters to people who have driven.
Speaker 3: Past that location and we're speeding because often these cameras
Speaker 3: go into locations that people aren't familiar with. Sometimes they
Speaker 3: go into locations where the speed limit has changed, and
Speaker 3: in the case of the trial of four point to
Speaker 3: point or average speed locations, for the first time ever,
Speaker 3: they're turning them on for cars. So what the government
Speaker 3: is doing is exactly what the NRMA told them to do,
Speaker 3: which is when you introduce a new camera to a location,
Speaker 3: let the public know and for a period of time
Speaker 3: and normally it's three months, issue a warning letter.
Speaker 1: As you say, people don't know it's there.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, people don't know what's there.
Speaker 3: So a really good example is the roseland to change,
Speaker 3: which is what some of the media have commented on
Speaker 3: this week. So that's a location in a tunnel, so
Speaker 3: there's not a warning sign in front of the camera.
Speaker 3: It's somewhere in the tunnel. You don't know where, and
Speaker 3: it can be confusing for a lot of drivers. It's
Speaker 3: a new road, it's a new part of the tunnel.
Speaker 3: Some part of it is sixty, some part is ninety.
Speaker 3: The camera is in the sixty part, not the ninety part,
Speaker 3: which you know it opens questions are there, and so
Speaker 3: that's really important that you know, we give people an
Speaker 3: opportunity to understand that there is new enforcement in the area.
Speaker 4: In some that's a new road.
Speaker 3: In some cases where we've seen they put a camera
Speaker 3: in a road where they change the speed limit and
Speaker 3: thousands and thousands of people are getting fined because you know,
Speaker 3: locals didn't know they changed the speed limit, and we
Speaker 3: wanted to put an end to that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and oftentimes you don't know whether or not you're
Speaker 2: actually speeding if you go through the tunnel. A good
Speaker 2: example of that is if you suddenly look down and
Speaker 2: you realize you're five k's over, or in the case
Speaker 2: of the motorbike, if you want to get past someone
Speaker 2: to save your life and you have to do that,
Speaker 2: so you've got to go five k's over the speed limit.
Speaker 2: Does it give you that lee way or was it
Speaker 2: as soon as it's picked you up and you're speeding
Speaker 2: there and then you get yourself the fine.
Speaker 4: Look, there is some leeway.
Speaker 3: There has to be because a dometer readings are not accurate,
Speaker 3: and the cameras to a millimeter of your life aren't
Speaker 3: accurate either, So there's a disconnect between what your a
Speaker 3: domitter is telling your speed domitter is telling you sorry,
Speaker 3: and what the actual camera is picking up.
Speaker 4: So there will always be some degree of leeway. You
Speaker 4: should never get fined doing sixty one in a sixty zone,
Speaker 4: for example.
Speaker 3: The last thing we need is people focused exclusively putting
Speaker 3: their eyes on the speedometer because they're terrified they're one
Speaker 3: k over the limit. That's not safe for anybody. So
Speaker 3: there is a degree of leeway. I don't think the
Speaker 3: government will actually ever announce how wide that is. But
Speaker 3: what we tell our members and the community is stick
Speaker 3: to the speed limit and as best as you know,
Speaker 3: obviously to the kilometer, and you should be fine.
Speaker 2: But if you're in a situation like I mentioned on
Speaker 2: the bike, where you've suddenly got to speed up in
Speaker 2: order not to get caught in an accident?
Speaker 1: Could you use that as a defense in court? Do
Speaker 1: you think if it went that.
Speaker 4: Far it'd have to be pretty specific?
Speaker 3: So, I mean, what you're talking about is an incident
Speaker 3: where you're about to have an accident where you had
Speaker 3: to speed up.
Speaker 4: I'm not sure how often.
Speaker 3: That would happen, and it would all happen right in
Speaker 3: front of the lens of a camera. So I mean
Speaker 3: our advice is, you know, if you're at risk, slow down,
Speaker 3: don't speed up.
Speaker 2: Right, And in New South Wales they've got these speed
Speaker 2: cameras predominantly used for heavy vehicles like trucks and buses,
Speaker 2: but this trial that's underway for regional areas is now
Speaker 2: going to include cars and motor bikes as well.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 3: So the point to point cameras or average speed cameras
Speaker 3: have been rolled out across New South Wales.
Speaker 4: And used for trucks for a number of years.
Speaker 3: The government is looking to run a trial, or has
Speaker 3: been running a trial in four low locations across regional
Speaker 3: New South Wales to apply those cameras to vehicles, to
Speaker 3: cars and to bikes. They have also been issuing warning
Speaker 3: letters to people who drove through those location speedting.
Speaker 4: But that all changes on the first of July.
Speaker 3: So if you go through that location in your speeding
Speaker 3: you will get you'll be fine, You'll get demerit points
Speaker 3: and a monetary fine like you normally would. And the
Speaker 3: way those cameras work is there's a camera at point A,
Speaker 3: there's a camera.
Speaker 4: At point B.
Speaker 3: It works out the average speed between the two, and
Speaker 3: if you cross those two locations faster than you should,
Speaker 3: you'll be issued to find Let me.
Speaker 1: Ask you this quickly, Well, I've got you.
Speaker 2: We talked about this on air the other night that
Speaker 2: in Adelaide, in some residential areas they're looking at putting
Speaker 2: the speed limits down to forty kilometers an hour in
Speaker 2: some areas and some areas thirty kilometers an hour. And
Speaker 2: we were talking about whether reducing the speed in residential
Speaker 2: areas to that speed limit is actually more detrimental, that
Speaker 2: it's actually going to cause more accidents because you're constantly
Speaker 2: aware looking down at your sphaedomeena, worrying about trying to
Speaker 2: keep within the limits.
Speaker 3: And here in lies the challenge, and this is the
Speaker 3: NMAS you on. This has been consistent from day one,
Speaker 3: councils should not be arbitrarily changing speed limits in their
Speaker 3: local area to deem forty k zones or as you mentioned,
Speaker 3: thirty k zones. Even more so, you need a consistent
Speaker 3: approach when it comes to putting speed limits, whether they
Speaker 3: go up or down.
Speaker 4: It needs to be evidence based. It needs to be
Speaker 4: driven by data. And what I mean by that is
Speaker 4: you need.
Speaker 3: To look at the performance of the road the traffic volumes,
Speaker 3: because that's really important because that gives you a sense
Speaker 3: of whether you speed should be sixty or seventy or fifty.
Speaker 3: Keeping in mind skill zones are forty. You need to
Speaker 3: look at the crash history and it needs to be
Speaker 3: done over an extended period of time so that you
Speaker 3: so that the speed is set at the appropriate level
Speaker 3: for the quality of that road. Before you start changing
Speaker 3: speed limits, you should be looking at whether or not
Speaker 3: there are engineering solutions things we can do to make
Speaker 3: the road safer. This arbitrary approach of just randomly dropping
Speaker 3: speed limits in some locations and not others is not
Speaker 3: going to deliver road safety outcomes. What it's going to
Speaker 3: do is create confusion in the community. People, as I said,
Speaker 3: start having to guess what the speed limit is in
Speaker 3: the local area, and that's unfortunately the path that we're
Speaker 3: going down. Councils are just slashing speed limits in some locations.
Speaker 3: Some roads are forty, some roads are fifty. You can't
Speaker 3: tell the difference between the two. Some roads that should
Speaker 3: be fifty or sixty have dropped or forty.
Speaker 4: Some roads are really good to drive on, but the
Speaker 4: speed limits just been dropped with no real explanation.
Speaker 3: So that's not what we want. We want consistency when
Speaker 3: it comes to speed limits. The decision should be evidence based,
Speaker 3: not arbitrary. And that should apply whether you're putting speed
Speaker 3: limits up or down. And I consistently say up because
Speaker 3: in the case of West Connects the speed limits and
Speaker 3: North Connects the speed limits went up to ninety k
Speaker 3: an hour off the back of a year's analysis.
Speaker 4: To decide whether or not they were safe enough to.
Speaker 3: Be ninety or not eighty. That's the approach we should
Speaker 3: be taking. They're not doing it here, and it's going
Speaker 3: to lead to pour out.
Speaker 2: And also you've got the lack of consistency as well.
Speaker 2: If you think a road is a certain limit and
Speaker 2: in the next day it's changed without any warning. Half
Speaker 2: the time, you don't know, Like you say, if you're
Speaker 2: moving from variable speed limits from one suburb to the next,
Speaker 2: it's hard to keep up with which speed limit you're
Speaker 2: supposed to keep too on your regular drive to work.
Speaker 3: The previous government removed warning signs for mobile speed comeras
Speaker 3: they were finding more people than a month than they
Speaker 3: were in a year, and overwhelmingly the feedback we got
Speaker 3: from the public was were guessing the speed limit.
Speaker 4: We we didn't know what.
Speaker 3: The speed They were putting these things in suburban streets
Speaker 3: where people were either lived there for years and just
Speaker 3: thought the speed limit was what it was, or in
Speaker 3: areas where the speed limits had been adjusted and the
Speaker 3: cameras were just dropped in without any warning people. You
Speaker 3: don't want drivers guessing the speed limit, and the more
Speaker 3: we change speed limits, the more it's the more arbitrary
Speaker 3: it becomes, where each council just chooses to put whatever
Speaker 3: speeds they want in their own LGA. With the inconsistency
Speaker 3: causes confusion. Confusion CAUs is both unsafety and also you
Speaker 3: lose support for the enforcement program because it feels like
Speaker 3: they're just finding you in areas where they can