Behind the branches, cop-cam is watching

Photo / Doug Sherring

Police will use undercover tactics - including hiding behind trees with video cameras to film motorists - in a hardline campaign to cut down the road toll.

The move, by Central North Island police, follows two Easter holiday crashes in the region in which five people died.

"Is it hiding? Yes, it is, and I make no apology for that," said the region's district commander, Superintendent Russell Gibson.

"If I have to have officers hiding in trees to stop the blatant disregard for the road rules that is claiming lives almost daily, then that is what I will do."

Government rules bar police from using hidden speed cameras, but Mr Gibson said covert videotaping was allowed.

He said the Easter crashes involved drivers crossing the centreline, and "this is not going to be tolerated".

Motorists might be caught on camera performing illegal manoeuvres such as overtaking on yellow lines.

Drivers filmed committing offences would also incur demerit points, which are not deducted for speed camera offences.

Mr Gibson, whose territory extends from north of Waikanae to Taranaki, the central volcanic plateau, and part of Wairarapa, said police were "sick and tired of attending nonsensical, preventable crashes".

Plain and marked patrol cars would be used in Operation Centreline, often operating in tandem with video cameras.

"Often motorists will not realise they are being videotaped until they are stopped further along the road," Mr Gibson said.

He expected "cynics" would accuse the police of revenue-gathering.

"But I suspect there will be an equal, if not greater, number of families of victims who will applaud the initiative."

Twenty-two people have died on central district roads this year.

Although that is fewer than the 29 deaths at the same time last year, Mr Gibson fears a trend back to the high death rates of the 1990s unless tough action is taken.

"Our road fatality rate peaked in the mid-1990s at around 70 and tracked down to just on 40 for 2008 before going back to 55 last year."

His district was "heartland New Zealand" in which head-on collisions were a particular hazard in the absence of median barriers.

"It is not like the Southern Motorway in Auckland."

Waikato police conducted a year-long hidden speed cameras trial in 1997, but the government of the day heeded public criticism and decided against introducing it nationally.

Waitemata road policing commander Superintendent John Kelly said videotaping had been successful on the Kaikoura coast.

"They had a major problem with people going through blind corners on the wrong side of the road and they achieved a significant reduction in offending."

But he believed it would be impractical for his Auckland motorway police to stop on the sides of the road to video drivers, as they needed to remain mobile to provide the highest level of deterrence.