More average speed, or point-to-point cameras have been recommended by a federal road safety review panel, with the amount of road funding handed out by the federal government conditional on having more of these cameras installed.
The recommendation on speed cameras by the joint select committee on road safety, chaired by former federal transport minister Darren Chester, is one of 61 issued by the panel after an exhaustive inquiry which began just over 12 months ago.
Canberra has only one point-to-point camera, located on Hindmarsh Drive between Yamba Drive and Dalrymple Street.
The Hindmarsh Drive set-up is an uncommon installation across Australia because point-to-point cameras are most often installed in non-urban environments.
A second had been installed on Athllon Drive at a cost of $733,000 but was decommissioned because the cameras had reached the end of their "technical life" and parts could no longer be obtained from the manufacturer. It was also seen as a poor location.
One of the research arguments supporting point-to-point cameras, as opposed to single location speed cameras, is that they are more effective in reducing speed over longer distances.
However, point-to-point cameras can only be installed on "free-flowing" roads with no intersections and no other mechanisms (roundabouts, etc) which significantly affect the average speed between the two detection points.
Public feedback to the most recent evaluation of the ACT road safety camera program by the Monash University Accident Research Centre found that over a third of Canberra drivers strongly disapproved of point-to-point cameras - as they generally do all speed cameras - and the Hindmarsh Drive set-up had the lowest detection rate of any of the various systems in place.
Mobile point-to-point cameras, a new technology, were flagged by the research centre as potentially "cost beneficial".
A new evaluation of the ACT's speed cameras is now being progressed by the centre, with public input to the process closing last month.
Western Australia began a trial of two mobile point-to-point cameras on its roads from September last year, aimed at addressing its high rate of road deaths and trauma in regional areas.
The cameras calculate average speed over a distance and also function as "standard" fixed point speed cameras, capable of snapping and pictures of cars if they are speeding when they pass by.
No infringements have been handed out during the WA trial, and the results are still being assessed.
