Speed campaign nets $1 million

Photo / Steven McNicholl

A move to lower the road toll by getting tougher on speeding drivers at Christmas netted almost $1 million in fines.

Between 4pm on Christmas Eve and 6am on January 5, police took action against drivers going more than 5km/h over the limit, instead of the usual 10km/h.

Figures obtained by the Herald on Sunday under the Official Information Act reveal 31,786 drivers paid $953,580 as a result. Almost half were driving up to 60km/h in a 50km/h zone.

The road tolls over Christmas and Labour weekend - when a similar operation took place - were the same as the previous year.

A similar operation last Queen's Birthday Weekend coincided with a big fall in the toll - from eight to one - compared with the year before.

Reaction to the $1m haul has been divided. Police defend their lower tolerance of speeding drivers but motorists question why the campaign wasn't restricted to highways and dismissed the move as a revenue-gathering exercise.

National road policing manager Paula Rose said reducing speed was the most important factor in road safety. "In 2008, speed contributed to 34 per cent of New Zealand's fatal crashes and 20 per cent of serious injury crashes," she said.

Auckland City road policing manager Gavin Macdonald said the decreased tolerance was about getting people to think about how fast they drove.

"A lot more people are aware of their speed and driving in a safer manner," he said.

"They know they have to be careful because it is pretty easy to get caught if you are doing 5km over the speed limit."

He denied it was the police's intention to increase revenue around holiday periods.

"It's not you against the police, it's you against the Grim Reaper."

AA motoring affairs manager Mike Noon said he didn't believe the police set out to collect more revenue.

The AA had been told there were fewer accidents due to reduced tolerance at holiday periods and believed that was down to a higher police presence and increased awareness.

But he said the AA also wanted police to target drivers travelling at slower speeds. "We don't want police coming down on drivers doing 105km/h on one of our safest four-lane motorways. They should be concentrating on those high-risk roads where more crashes happen."

Last year, 1485 mobile and static speed cameras in the North Island detected 523,939 offences resulting in $42.4m in fines.

Road safety consultant Mark Scott said reduced tolerance was a "sneaky" way to raise revenue.

"This has absolutely zero to do with cutting the holiday road toll and everything to do with revenue collection," he said.

"City streets during holidays are empty for goodness sake."

He called for double demerit points on dangerous drivers instead.

"Don't victimise the perfectly sensible responsible driver for doing a few km over the limit when it is perfectly safe to do so."

Motorists in Auckland agreed. Anthony Dufton, a 32-year-old courier driver, said stopping people doing 5km/h over the limit wouldn't reduce deaths on the roads. "I think the speed limit...could be quicker in certain places like the highways. Too much police resources is put into revenue gathering."

Russell Weston, a 45-year-old business analyst, said driver education was more important.

"Half of New Zealand roads are rubbish but if drivers were educated properly they could cope with that," he said.

"I got ticketed about 12 months ago on a 2km straight with only two cars on the road ... you're going to catch people on a deserted road but are they the same people who are causing the accidents? I doubt it."