Waka kotahi says new road safety cameras that track a cars speed over a length of road are way more effective at reducing crashes than fixed spot speed cameras. The so called point to point cameras average a vehicles speed over the journey between two cameras. They're being installed along stretches of six roads that are considered high risk crash areas in the Auckland region. The cameras will be tested for about about three months and data will be gathered before they're used for enforcement and tickets start being issued. Waka Kotahi's head of regulatory strategic programmes, Tara MacMillan, explains in more detail how the new cameras work.

It looks like instead of pinging carelessness, we will soon be keeping people to the speed limit.

With the reducing of speed limits being pulled, at least this will give another way to reduce the impact of crashes.

Unlike the comment on reddit saying this won’t reduce crashes, I’m going to point out that it’s not designed to. Road to zero is about recognising crashes will happen, this move is about reducing the damage when crashes inevitably occur.

  • @gibberish_driftwood
    2•8 months ago

    I remember them in the UK when we visited as long ago as 2012. My main recollection was that they seemed very effective at causing you to think very carefully about your speed, because in a long line of traffic nobody wants to be the person who drives extra slow to make up for accidentally going too fast a few seconds earlier.

    I’m curious to know the reasons for them apparently being hated.

    • @RecallMadness
      2•8 months ago

      They’re hated because they’re seen as more intrusion, and make drivers stupid. Drivers will speed, and then slam on the brakes and go past the cameras slowly.

      The UK is very different when it comes to speed cameras.

      • They’re fucking everywhere
      • they have to be painted bright yellow
      • there is (generally) a policy of 10%+2 over the speed limit (I.e 50mph, 57mph is ‘free’ but if you’re caught doing 58 you’ll be pinged for 8mph over)

      They also changed the rules (semi) recently; so that they will only install speed cameras in places where speeding has caused accidents. Which is reasonable imo.