KEY POINTS:
Aucklanders have been quick to dob in motorists they see running red traffic lights, generating a mountain of mailouts to hundreds of offenders.
By last night, Auckland City Council had received 800 complaints of red-light running since launching a month-long awareness campaign 12 days ago. These included 423 calls to a special phone line and 377 reports to a council website.
And city road safety manager Karen Hay said she had expected even more, given an unacceptable level of red-light running through Auckland intersections.
But she said the speed at which some motorists raced through intersections made it difficult to note some registration numbers, highlighting the need for a trial of red-light cameras.
Ms Hay said she was disappointed that 26 buses had been reported as allegedly running red lights, as well as taxis and courier vans.
Although a proposed $750,000 red-light camera trial will not start until late this year, given a need for equipment reliability tests by the police, the council is sending letters to offenders to emphasise its safety concerns in the meantime. That is because 176 red-light crashes occurred in Auckland City last year, a 24 per cent increase on 142 in 2005.
Ms Hay indicated that advice in the letters that "no other action will be taken" against offenders may be re-worded to emphasise the council's determination to change the behaviour of drivers.
She said the advice was included in case of hoax complaints.
* Incident reports can be phoned to 0800 Stop 4 Red (0800 786 747) or logged on the web at stop4red.co.nz.
