Hon PAUL SWAIN: The Government is considering a range of new enforcement options to go with its very successful engineering programme. An education programme will be announced next week. We have to bring the road toll down; it is as simple as that.
Mark Peck: What other reports has the Minister seen on the effect of speed camera trials?
Hon PAUL SWAIN: I have seen a number of reports saying that hidden speed cameras were successful in reducing crashes and fatalities, that there were sufficient road-safety gains from their use, and that cameras were used for road-safety reasons—not to raise revenue. Those reports are from the former National Prime Minister Jenny Shipley and from former National Minister of Transport Maurice Williamson. They are from the days, of course, when National had good leaders—not ones like that motley lot over there.
Mr SPEAKER: That last comment the member knows is out of order. He will withdraw and apologise.
Hon Paul Swain: I withdraw and apologise.
Ron Mark: Other than the strategy of concealing speed cameras in wheelie bins, a tactic most New Zealanders would rubbish, what other novel ideas has the Minister considered in his proposal to camouflage and conceal speed cameras?
Hon PAUL SWAIN: Most people would consider those kinds of measures rubbish. As I have said, a range of road safety options is being considered. Announcements are hopefully to made in December.
Hon Tony Ryall: Noting that Mrs Shipley and Mr Williamson’s comments were made before the end of the pilot scrapped by Mr Gosche, why will this Minister not realise that dead bodies speak louder than officials’ reports, which showed that in the hidden speed camera area, the road toll went up, and that the trial was cancelled because it did not work?
Hon PAUL SWAIN: That is totally contrary to what the Auditor-General’s report said in 2002, and I recommend that the member read it.
Hon Tony Ryall: In trying to defend what has become an indefensible position in light of the fact that his own officials’ report showed the road toll went up over the period of the speed camera trial, why does the Minister keep quoting the Victorian experience with hidden speed cameras, when in fact, in the last 10 years, the road toll in Victoria has remained virtually unchanged, yet here in New Zealand the road toll has gone down 37 percent over the same period, without hidden cameras?
Hon PAUL SWAIN: The Victorian situation has reached a plateau and the Victorians are in the same position as us. [Interruption] They are in the same position as us, which is why we are considering new measures. Rather than quote transport officials, I would rather quote the Auditor-General, who said that over the period 1 June 1997 to June 1999, the open road crash rate fell by 11 percent and open road casualties fell by 19 percent, which are effects that have been associated with the hidden speed camera trial. So, I am happy to table this, although there is no need to because it is already a document of Parliament.
Hon Tony Ryall: I seek leave to table a document that shows the official review of the hidden speed camera trial that shows, firstly, that no conclusions can be drawn on a link between speeds and hidden speed cameras because of the small statistical sample, and, secondly, that the number of deaths went up over the trial period; it did not go down.
Document, by leave, laid on the Table of the House.
Hon Paul Swain: I seek leave to table two letters, one from Maurice Williamson and one from Jenny Shipley, supporting the speed camera trials.
Documents, by leave, laid on the Table of the House.
Ron Mark: I seek leave to table some photographs of a speed camera hidden in a wheelie bin.
Mr SPEAKER: Leave is sought to table those photographs. Is there any objection? There is.
Hawkes Bay News
Speed fines not cutting Bay deaths
12.01.2006
PAUL TAGGART
Two related news items in recent days make a mockery of the claim that safety, rather than revenue-gathering, is the driving force behind the police's speed-camera drive.
One of the items outlined the fact that Hawke's Bay was top of the Central North Island speed camera hit parade, with more than 20,000 tickets issued in the region last year.
At an average of $150 an infringement, drivers in the province added more than $3 million in fines to Michael Cullen's surplus.
So surely there would be a corresponding improvement in the province's fatality rate for the year?
Wrong!
Hawke's Bay's road toll for last year was the highest since 1997.
Thirty-seven people died in Hawke's Bay - between Wairoa and Woodville - which is nearly double the 20 recorded deaths for 2004.
So what has gone so horribly wrong?
After a serious of multiple-death crashes the police came up with Operation Saint Christopher, which involved checkpoints gathering cash from motorists who weren't wearing seatbelts.
There is no doubt that not wearing seatbelts and excessive speed causes deaths, but any casual observer will see those causing the accidents, in many cases, are not the people from whom the police speed cameras are harvesting revenue.
The statistics can be manipulated to make any number of points, and they often are. For example, 23 percent of the vehicle occupants killed last year were not wearing seatbelts. Therefore 77 percent of those killed were wearing seatbelts. Does that mean it is safer not to wear a seatbelt?
The reality is that a high proportion of teenage boys were among the fatalities last year. They can be seen - and heard - every weekend tearing through our cities in the early hours of the morning. Yet where are the traffic cops? Home in bed.
They come out to boost the State's coffers when holidaymakers are driving safely to Taupo at 111km/h. Then there is a good, regular flow of cars, most being driven safely, but they provide a steady stream of cash. Apart from when they are being driven by police officers, of course, as two-thirds of speed camera fines issued to more than 350 police staff last year were waived.
There is nothing magical about the speed of 100km/h. In Australia and Britain the speed limit is higher and in some countries there is no upper limit as motorists are trusted to drive to the conditions. When roads are dry and empty, that may well be above 100km/h.
An arbitrary limit allows sloppy policing. Officers don't have to determine if there has been dangerous driving, as they just ticket everyone.
But the policy alienates huge segments of the public who, a generation ago, would have been the police's greatest allies.
Is is not dissimilar to the case of the security guard at Sunday's cricket game who, by unnecessarily attempting to stop two women kissing, almost sparked a riot. Common sense is required.
Police officers should be more than robotic control freaks. If senior staff looked at and addressed the issues behind the Bay's terrible toll last year then there would be more officers on the roads at night dealing with boy racers, but without the macho aggression that results in young drivers seeing police officers as the enemy. There would also be fewer than 20,247 speeding tickets issued to our region's motorists, most for relatively minor infringements.
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