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AAP
AAP
Luke Costin

Govt open to closing loophole for one in four drivers

Point-to-point speed cameras may soon be aimed at cars, utes and vans as well as heavy vehicles. (Tony McDonough/AAP PHOTOS)

Car, ute and van drivers speeding down highways in NSW could soon be fined with average speed cameras.

More than seven million registered vehicles take to NSW roads each year but the 37 point-to-point cameras statewide only monitor a few hundred thousand heavy vehicles.

Locations range from the Sydney Harbour Tunnel and the city's ring of tollways to a 94km stretch of the Newell Highway in the state's west.

But on the sidelines of a road safety summit on Thursday, Roads Minister John Graham left the door open to lifting the heavy-vehicle-only restriction.

"The government will look at the evidence here," he told reporters.

"We're not putting a position today about any individual action that we need to take."

Speed camera warning signs, another NSW measure that puzzles road safety experts, however will not be removed.

Mr Graham denied such a change was needed as the warnings were important to maintain community support, they helped driver education and were backed by the NRMA.

The two policies this week were identified as easy, cheap solutions to help halt the rising number of deaths on Australia's roads.

"These are two very simple things to just go: this is what everyone else in the country is doing," Australasian College of Road Safety chief executive Ingrid Johnston told AAP.

"It's like a minimum."

Dr Johnston said point-to-point cameras got around "all the rubbish arguments" about revenue raising or choosing certain locations to nab people.

The cameras are also about to be installed in Sweden, which is second only to neighbour Norway for the lowest road fatality rate in the world. Australia is ranked 18 out of 31 OECD nations.

Swedish road safety expert Johan Strandroth told Thursday's summit reducing road trauma had involved a concerted effort to reduce speed limits and make the system more forgiving.

On both Swedish and Australian rural roads, there was a mismatch between speed and infrastructure, he said.

But in the Scandinavian nation, drivers on 100km/h roads rarely faced the threat of head-on-collisions due to median barriers.

"If we want to provide the tools to drive faster than 80, we need to provide a high level of infrastructure," he said.

"If we can't do that, well, we need to have a conversation about speed."

Opposition roads spokeswoman Natalie Ward backed the introduction of further road safety measures but hoped Thursday's summit resulted in outcomes.

"It is not acceptable to have a talkfest and have ideas and conversations that don't result in outcomes that will save lives," she told reporters.

NSW has led the nation in the use of mobile phone detection cameras, which Labor will extend in coming months to also enforce seatbelt use.

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