KEY POINTS:
War is about to be declared on motorists driving through red lights at 10 of Auckland's most dangerous inter-sections.
A pair of digital red-light cameras will be switched on tomorrow at two of the central-city intersections, after months of calibration and fine-tuning.
But although highly visible battleship-grey housing boxes have been installed at all intersections on the pilot scheme's roster, Auckland City Council and the police want to keep motorists guessing where the cameras will be at any time, and when drivers will be at risk of incurring $150 fines.
"This was never about getting as many cameras as we could to saturate the place," council road safety manager Karen Hay said last night. "We just want people to change their behaviour - the measure of our success will be the day no infringements are issued.
"Red-light cameras are about reducing the loss of human life and improving safety on the roads, not about collecting fines."
She said it would be difficult for motorists to tell whether a camera was inside any particular box, before a nearby flash unit gave away its identify by snapping a red-light runner.
But she believed the police would rotate them around various sites "on at least a weekly basis" after a ceremony tomorrow in which Police and Transport Minister Annette King would launch the new scheme.
Ms Hay said the scheme would run as a six-month pilot in the first instance, costing about $800,000 before the council presented results to Government funding agency Land Transport NZ for a decision on whether to grant subsidies to install cameras elsewhere in Auckland and New Zealand.
She said Land Transport and the Auckland Regional Transport Authority had contributed about $200,000 each, adding to $400,000 in funds from her council, and the police had pledged full operational support.
Council transport committee chairman Ken Baguley said the committing of ratepayers' money had to be weighed against a social cost of almost $12 million for 48 injury crashes - including one fatal - in the five years to 2005 at the 10 intersections on the scheme's camera roster.
The council will also use an established electronic system to collect red-light offending data at 33 other intersections to measure the wider impact it hopes the camera pilot will have on motorists' behaviour.
Mr Baguley said it was particularly alarming that during a 20-day trial of that parallel exercise in January, the system detected 341,000 cases of red-light running.
Land Transport statistics show that red-lighting is worse in Auckland that anywhere else in New Zealand, and was the cause of 399 crashes in the central business district in the five years to 2005.
Red-light running caused 1004 crashes citywide, in which nine people were killed and 387 others injured.
Ms Hay said running red lights was the cause of 166 - or just under half - of the 335 injuries recorded at intersections with lights in that time in the business district.
She believed that might be a symptom of Aucklanders being in "more of a hurry" than motorists in other centres, but she said that was no excuse for putting lives at risk.
She said motorists had already been served notice of tougher action, by a campaign a year ago in which the council invited people to phone an 0800 line to report cases of red-light running. More than 2600 offending vehicles, including 115 buses and 49 taxis, were identified by their number-plates and their owners sent letters in a bid to change behaviour.
Ms Hay said the council suspected that since the boxes were installed in January and February, motorists had already taken note of them and started modifying their actions accordingly.
CAMERA SITES
* Symonds St-Karangahape Rd
* Victoria St West-Nelson St
* Customs St East-Gore St
* Ponsonby Rd-Hopetoun St
* Union St-Nelson St
* Queen St-Karangahape Rd
* Wellesley St West-Mayoral Dr
* Albert St-Victoria St West
* Wellesley St East-Mayoral Dr
* Hobson St-Cook St
MOTORISTS SEE THE LIGHT
It may be that Auckland drivers are becoming more patient and compliant at intersections, ahead of the introduction tomorrow of red-light cameras at some of their city's most dangerous sites.
An hour-long Herald survey yesterday afternoon at the intersection of Symonds St and Karangahape Rd counted just 26 red-light runners during 93 traffic phases, compared with 46 at the same site a year and a half ago.
Although the traffic was lighter than during the previous count in October 2006, most drivers appeared to be in less of a hurry and unwilling to take chances against the lights.
Dishonourable exceptions included a freight van, a tour bus and a taxi, which hurtled through the intersection after the lights changed to red.
Two cyclists were among the 26 offenders, although they were guilty of sneaking through the lights with left-hand turns from Symonds St to Grafton Bridge rather than any full-on confrontations with opposing traffic.
The Herald's count did not include the many vehicles we saw entering the intersection on amber lights, as the cameras will record only those who have started crossing on red.
Neither did it include a white station-wagon which raced through a red light with a siren blaring, but with no apparent markings to identify it as an emergency services vehicle.
The survey was conducted during the off-peak period of 2.30pm to 3.30pm, the same time of day as the 2006 count.
The intersection is one of 10 through which a pair of cameras will be rotated regularly from tomorrow, and was the scene of 14 crashes caused by red-light runners in the five years to 2005.
