Fatal crossroads on camera

Red light cameras are poised to make a comeback in central Auckland after a five-year absence has turned the city into an arena of motoring recklessness.

In that time 427 crashes within Auckland City attributed to red-light running have led to seven deaths - two of them pedestrians - and 65 serious injuries.

The Auckland Regional Transport Authority has applied to the Government for a subsidy for half of the estimated $400,000 cost of a three-year trial of at least two high-tech digital cameras to move around 11 high-crash intersections.

The funding application due to be considered by the Land Transport NZ board next month comes five years after Auckland City Council abandoned red-light film cameras as too outdated and costly to operate.

But council road-safety manager Karen Hay, whose organisation intends to contribute $66,000 to the trial, said yesterday that the number of motorists gambling with their lives and those of innocent bystanders had since risen to alarming levels.

Their behaviour was particularly unacceptable given that Auckland had the highest concentration of pedestrians in New Zealand - including lunch-time crowds of up to 6000 in Queen St alone.

"We have very serious concerns about the amount of red-light running in Auckland - and it is having a significant impact on accessibility and mobility for pedestrians and cyclists," Ms Hay said.

An increasing number of motorists who seemed to regard running red lights as acceptable were turning central city intersections into hostile environments for pedestrians, undermining efforts to entice more people out of their cars.

She said it was often hard for the police to intercept offenders in rush-hour traffic, hence the renewed interest in the cameras.

Land Transport statistics blame 427 injury crashes in Auckland City in the five years to December 31 on vehicles running red lights - 135 of them were in the central business district. It puts the social cost of just the CBD crashes at $63.9 million.

Ms Hay said 45 pedestrians were among those injured in red-light crashes throughout the city, and two were killed, as were five vehicle occupants. No cyclists were killed, but 10 were injured.

A staff report to the city council said the regional transport authority had secured funds to buy two red-light cameras, and would work with the police to manage data collection and issue infringement notices, for $150 each. Auckland City is to provide infrastructure and technical support for the cameras.

But a transport authority spokeswoman said the number of cameras had yet to be determined, and there could be more than two, given the "pretty horrendous" crash statistics. "It's a real safety issue for Arta [the transport authority]," she said.

Ms Hay said that although the old cameras had long since been taken down from traffic lights, some of their fixtures remained in place and may be usable for the replacements.

Although the Police and Accident Compensation Corporation support the authority's funding application in principle, Police Commissioner Howard Broad has yet to confirm an enforcement regime.

The worst of 11 intersections for pedestrian casualties nominated for the trial is where Symonds St meets Karangahape Rd. Four red-light-running crashes there in five years killed one pedestrian and injured three others at an estimated social cost of $3.9 million.

Including minor injuries to two vehicle occupants and a cyclist increased the figure to $4.2 million.

At the intersection of Union St and Hobson St, which is not even on the list, 300 vehicles were recorded running through red lights over a 24-hour period in May.

A regional transport authority survey of 1767 drivers and pedestrians in the CBD found that 75 per cent wanted red-light cameras and 41 per cent deemed inner-city intersections unsafe for pedestrians.