Police reduce threshold for speed cameras, tens of thousands more drivers fined

In the first nine months of 2022, the number of speedsters caught by mobile cameras had doubled compared to 2021. Photo / File

By Ben Strang and Phil Pennington of RNZ

The police have quietly lowered the threshold at which speed cameras ping drivers.

The result is tens of thousands more tickets handed out for drivers doing between 1 and 11km/h over the speed limit.

For January 2021, for instance, police figures show static and mobile speed cameras snapped just under 20,000 drivers doing just over the limit. In January this year, that figure was more than 90,000.

In the first nine months of this year, the number of speedsters caught by mobile cameras had doubled compared to 2021, but fines on average were up by only a fifth.

“This is likely due to changes in camera settings to address road safety outcome risks, resulting in a higher proportion of notices being for offences with lower infringement fees,” police told RNZ.

“It means camera activation settings are being set in closer proximity to the speed limit.”

What the new activation threshold was or whether the public were informed of the change, police have not said.

The January-on-January figures for fines against motorists from mobile and fixed cameras show $600,000 in fines in 2021, and $2.7m this year.

Police have been under pressure to increase use of speed cameras after years of undershooting targets that NZTA funds them to hit. NZTA takes over the cameras next year.

RNZ has asked Police Minister Chris Hipkins if he was aware of the threshold change and if he supported it, given people were paying more fines during a cost-of-living crisis.

In the past couple of years, police language has changed around speeding. Its website warns drivers could get pinged “at any speed over the limit”.

However, officer-issued speeding tickets haven’t increased at all in the 1-10km/h bracket, only the cameras are catching more.

Mobile camera use hours did not go up markedly in the year either, hitting only 58,000 hours in the 2021-22 year against a target of 80,000-plus.

A motorist caught doing 47 in a 40 zone emailed RNZ on Thursday to say they challenged their ticket, quoting a police manual instruction that advised leeway for speeds up to 10km/h over the limit.

“It was rejected with the comment that ‘this has not been police advice for a number of years’,” the man said.

“My concern is that the police are sending out a large number of speeding tickets for petty amounts over the limit just to make their figures look good.

“As to whether they are actually progressing their objective to majorly reduce crashes and injury and death on the roads by doing so is quite another matter.”

In recent times police have had weekends and holiday periods where they’ve explicitly dropped the threshold to 4km/h.

Enforcement against speeding was central to the government’s Road to Zero strategy that aims to bring death and serious injuries down 40 per cent by 2030.