A leading road safety expert says the New South Wales government’s decision to reintroduce warning signs for mobile speed cameras is “populist insanity”.
Prof Raphael Grzebieta from UNSW’s Transport and Road Safety Research Centre said on Friday the decision was “very disappointing” and would lead to more road deaths.
“What’s going to happen now is people will start speeding again,” he told Guardian Australia. “It’s a simple formula. You’re getting more kinetic energy into the system and crashes are going to become more severe.
“It’s lunacy, it really is.”
Since fixed signage was removed across the state in November 2020, the number of motorists receiving infringement penalties has escalated.
From February 2022, large double-sided blue and white warnings will again appear, this time on the roofs of all mobile speed camera vehicles.
The deputy premier and minister for regional transport and roads, Paul Toole, said on Friday the new signs would be rolled out along with an additional 1,000 fixed signs previously announced.
“This is about striking the right balance,” he told reporters.
“There is no excuse for those who are speeding ... this is a government that has listened to the community.”
In November, former NSW roads minister Duncan Gay told a parliamentary road safety inquiry the removal of the signs was done in good faith but was the wrong decision.
“Speed cameras are important but they shouldn’t be there for entrapment,” he said at the time.
Revenue NSW data shows the number of mobile digital speed camera fines where the speed limit was exceeded by 10km/h or less went from 3,222 in October 2020 to 27,855 by February 2021.
Grzebieta said the rise in revenue was because NSW drivers were “hooked on speed” and accustomed to getting away with it.
“You drive the speed limit, you don’t get stung, you don’t get fined,” he said. “Simple as that.
“There really is no speed over the speed limit that is safe, to tell the honest truth. A 5% rise in the average speed of the population, you get a 20% rise in fatalities.
“That’s a very clear relationship, well established.”
The NSW opposition leader Chris Minns welcomed the decision to bring back the signs, saying common sense had prevailed.
“These hidden speed cameras were raising revenue on a giant scale in NSW like nothing we had ever seen before,” he said.
The removal of signs was about revenue raising, not road safety, he claimed.
“They were on track to collect more in one year than they collected in the previous five years, combined.
“We would much rather someone not commit the offence in the first place, rather than receive a fine in the mail two to three weeks after the offence has been committed.”
The government says camera revenue goes directly into the community road safety fund to improve road safety and provide education, life-saving infrastructure and enforcement.
