Cha-Ching! NZ's busiest speed cameras

Motorists were pinged more than $650,000 a year for driving too fast on Mahia Rd, Manurewa. Photo / Sarah Ivey

The busiest fixed speed cameras in the country have been named.

A camera on State Highway 1 in the Ngauranga Gorge near Wellington, which produced 8179 tickets, was speeding drivers' worst enemy last year.

The next two busiest were both in Auckland and generated 1300 tickets a month between them.

The cameras - on Mahia Rd, Manurewa, and Great North Rd in Glendene - were responsible for 8147 and 7461 tickets respectively in the year to October 31. Both were in 50km/h zones.

The other two sites within the top five were on Onewa Rd, Northcote, Auckland, (6348 tickets), and on Maunganui Rd in Tauranga (4599).

Figures released to the Herald under the Official Information Act show $30.4 million, or $2.5 million a month, was collected from 340,368 speed-camera tickets issued nationwide in the 12 months to October 31.

However, those figures were down by about $5 million and almost 100,000 tickets compared with the previous October year.

The revenue figures were not broken down into values for each site but if each ticket issued was for $80 - the fine for travelling between 11 and 15 km/h over the limit - tickets on Mahia Rd would have generated at least $651,760.

"That would buy a lot of groceries," said the Counties Manukau road policing manager Inspector Heather Wells. "But people don't think about that because they don't want to leave their foot off the accelerator.

"When people are speeding, the end result [in accidents] is so much worse than when they're not. That's why we are so desperate to get the speeds down."

The Auckland region appeared five times in a list of the country's top 10 busiest camera sites. Three of those were in the Waitemata police district, which includes the North Shore and West Auckland.

The camera that sent out the most tickets in 2008 - on East Coast Rd in Browns Bay, North Shore City - was this time the seventh busiest nationally (3963 tickets) and the fourth busiest in Auckland. Auckland's fifth busiest was on Great North Rd, Avondale (835).

Ms Wells said she wasn't surprised the Mahia Rd camera - between Glenveagh Park Drive and Thompson Tce - issued the most tickets as it was a busy area which people tended to use as a main thoroughfare despite the speed limit being only 50km/h.

People coming from Roscommon Rd, often travelling from the airport, used Mahia Rd to cut through to Great South Rd, Wattle Downs and Mahia Park.

Ms Wells said there were often accidents on the road but probably no more than in other busy areas.

Manukau City Council was looking at installing traffic lights at the roundabout on the corner of Mahia and Coxhead Rds because there had been problems with traffic flow.

The Mahia camera took the third biggest number of photos (9865), behind the Great North Rd camera (11,358) and the Ngauranga Gorge one (10,952).

Ms Wells said not all photos taken resulted in tickets being issued. "A percentage of notices are not printed - if the photos are not clear enough, there is more than one vehicle in the picture or there is just any doubt."

Waitakere Mayor Bob Harvey said the Glendene camera had "stung" him at least 10 times in the past five years, usually when he was exceeding the limit by about 2km/h on his way to council meetings.

"I have learned my lesson. I am glad to pay up as I am very aware that speed is deadly ... I have no excuse. People have got to realise they cannot speed."

NEW ZEALAND'S 10 MOST TICKETED SITES

8179
SH1, Ngauranga Gorge, Wellington

8147
Mahia Rd, Manurewa, Counties Manukau

7461
Great North Rd, between Kirby St and Awaroa Rd, Glendene, Auckland

6348
Onewa Rd, Northcote, Auckland

4599
Maunganui Rd, Mt Maunganui, Bay of Plenty

4033
SH1, Sanson-Farmer St between Cemetery Rd, Central District

3963
East Coast Rd, North Shore, Auckland

3937
Main South Rd, Hornby, Canterbury

2946
Fitzgerald Ave, Christchurch between Armagh St-Bealey Ave

835
Great North Rd, between Ash St and Blockhouse Bay Rd, Avondale