Speed Cameras & Speeding Fines Blog

An article on the West Australioan states that “The time-honoured practice of spotting a speed camera by the roadside and hitting the brakes will become pointless when the Government rolls out new cameras which photograph speeders from 100m.”

This is BS – and yet again, is simply fear mongering / scare tactics put out. The technical stats from the manufacture show a MAXIMUM range of 75m – however from experience, we can accurately reveal that the typical detection range is 15 – 40m. The story continues as follows:

Police say by the time lead-footed motorists see one of 14 new Vitronic dual-lens digital cameras, which photograph the front and rear of vehicles, the state-of-the-art devices will have already caught them.

The use of the cameras, which was revealed by The West Australian in February, was launched officially yesterday on Woodrow Avenue, Dianella, where 5000 motorists were caught speeding last year. [I wonder how many accidents occured from these 5000 speeding motorists?] Isn’t the governemnt’s site selection policy meant to be based on fatalities?

The laser-based cameras, which capture digital images from a distance, [of 15 - 75m] are a significant step up from the film-equipped Multanovas, which required vehicles to cross a beam to be caught.

Police Minister Rob Johnson said 430,000 people were caught speeding in WA last year. and WA had 194 fatalities, which represents 0.045% of the (actually caught speeding) 430,000 drivers.

“Our cameras are the first in Australia which are dual-lens cameras and they will also catch up to four lanes of traffic on a freeway,” he said. Sorry Rob, but Victoria also have the Poliscans

The devices would finally catch motorcyclists, who for 20 years had avoided detection because they did not have front number plates.

Police have seven of the cameras, with another seven on order and they are expected to be deployed by the end of June.

State Traffic Commander Michelle Fyfe said the cameras, which consist of two units about 20m apart, could also monitor traffic heading in both directions and could capture vehicles overtaking other traffic

“Anything we can do to slow people down has to be a positive,” she said. Personally we’d like to see more police cars on the streets, that can target dangerous driving, unroad worthy vehicles, etc