a mobile speed camera temporarily installed on a rural road led to at least 589 fines being issued in a town of just 811 households.
Gods that data is appalling. Is it really likely that that rate speeding is really going on? Especially after the first few days once the locals are familiar with the placement of the camera and won’t be caught unawares.
As she drove past, she said an electronic speed-monitoring sign on the side of the road lit up green with a smile, indicating it believed she was going under the limit of 60km/h.
Weeks later, she discovered the camera disagreed. That was one of nine fines issued to her car between 15 and 20 September. All of them arrived the same day.
The fact that the fines take weeks to show up and you can be driving the same stretch of road that entire time, getting a fine every single day, is appalling. All but one fine per person should be thrown out on that basis alone.
The fact that their Speed Awareness Monitor thinks they were doing the right speed is also particularly bad. It seems likely to be the best evidence that this camera was just miscalbibrated and all its fines should be scrapped. But even if the camera was calibrated correctly and it’s the SAM that’s wrong, the fact that the SAM told drivers they’re going the right speed should be ground enough for aquital, in my opinion. They were given clearance and told they were doing the right thing.
It’s like if a Council officer pilut on high vis and started controlling a signalised intersection, instructing drivers to ignore the traffic lights. It doesn’t matter that that officer might not have the appropriate training or authorisation to be doing what he was doing. Drivers shouldn’t be given a red light fine for going when someone who appeared authoritative said they should go.
Gods that data is appalling. Is it really likely that that rate speeding is really going on? Especially after the first few days once the locals are familiar with the placement of the camera and won’t be caught unawares.
Despite the example you gave - almost none of those fines would have been locals.
It’s a major interstate route and people travelling through the town are the ones that get fined - in other parts of the state the speed limit for that road would be far higher (probably 110kph with a bypass for the town) and wouldn’t be enforced as heavily either.
It’s a major interstate route…
If it were a major interstate route, it would have a name, instead of being called Small Town-Smaller Town Rd (Atherton-Malanda Rd). It also wouldn’t be 250km north of the last major route to the NT (Flinders Hwy) or 20km west of the road to Cairns (Bruce Hwy). Your claim is completely untrue.
Knuth said his constituents are “ropeable” about two issues: juvenile crime and speeding fines.
I get that the Katters have youth crime as one of the biggest topics they run on (I also suspect they don’t have any sustainable plans to address it). But how much youth crime can there possibly be in a podunk town of 811 people? Don’t conflate two distinct topics to score political points.
As someone who grew up in Malanda… not much crime there as far as I know. Everyone in the town is on a first name basis and friendly.
But other towns only slightly larger in the same area are out of control. I’m talking nuisance crimes - such as a kid smashing in the windscreen of your car with a baseball bat or spray painting a penis on your shop sign or straight up burning a business building to the ground for no reason other than they think it’s funny.
If it was once in a blue moon… ok. That’s what insurance is for. But when you’re personally a victim of stuff like that several times a year and so is everyone else you know… it’s borderline unliveable. The police force are so under-funded most of these crimes don’t even get reported. They show up four days later and take a few notes, and that’s it.
As for what Knuth is doing about it… not much he can do other than complain. Police are run from Brisbane and it’s clear they don’t think it’s a priority. Shit’s been getting worse every year for as long as I’ve lived here. Supposedly they need 150 additional officers for the district and recently hired four. They don’t report how many retired or quit in frustration (I suspect more than four).
Last time I had a chat with a local Malanda officer, he said he’s in hot water because an independent audit reported people speeding regularly on a stretch of highway but where he’d never issued any speeding fines. It was a down hill where you need to be riding the brakes to stay within the speed limit and was recently reduced from 100km/h to 60km/h for no reason — the road is safer than it ever has been, due to upgrades, and there was never a crash even before the safety improvements. I’m talking a nice wide straight highway with nothing but cow paddocks on either side of the highway. Even if you “crashed”, you’d harmlessly get stuck in the mud and the next car to drive past would help you get out of the mud. I wonder if he’s been replaced by someone who’s happy to issue tickets instead of helping with real problems (I don’t live there anymore).
I have zero doubt that youth crime is a problem in many places, and I am certain that a lot of speed enforcement is purely revenue-generating. I simply bristle at reductive statements from politicians like Knuth who only have complaints and no plans. Both of these issues are non-trivial to address, but nobody wants to hear about complexities, because that means change will take time. They just want things to change now, and that’s not happening.
We did a US trip recently, and in 5000k of driving on their major roads and highways through half a dozen states, we saw a total of 3 speed detection devices - all hand held by cops in patrol cars.
We get back to Brisbane and passed 2 speed cameras on the 30 minute trip home from the airport.
If only there were some way to avoid speeding…
Speed is such a nothing burger when it comes to safe driving, yet it seems to be the only thing the police focus on.
A more cynical person might point out the fact that it’s the easiest one to generate revenue from, and when budgets predict a rise in speed camera revenue year on year the focus is maybe not on safety.
They could pass laws fining people for anything, I think the reason speeding is the focus is because it’s easy to enforce. You can’t just point a radar gun at a lane of traffic and have it pick up all the fatigued or drunk drivers.
The people in charge tend to focus on what they can measure, regardless of how important it is.
This is completely incorrect, it is extremely simple to demonstrate that accidents increase with speed and also that such accidents are more likely to result in injury.
What you are alluding to are extremely misleading studies which do not separate fender benders as a separate category, since they are the most common collision and almost always happen due to congestion and distractions. Collisions where injuries occur are significantly more probable as speed goes up.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Dozens of Malanda residents say they’re preparing individual legal challenges after a mobile speed camera temporarily installed on a rural road led to at least 589 fines being issued in a town of just 811 households.
Their case has generated a wider debate about the calibration and placement of trailer-based speed cameras in rural Queensland, and length of time between an alleged offence occurring and when a fine is issued.
Trainee ambulance driver Lana Miller saw the Malanda camera for the first time heading down the hill on a bend of the winding Malanda–Atherton road, about 75 kilometres south-west of Cairns, on 15 September.
Bonadio spoke to one elderly resident who regularly drives to the aged care home to visit his wife and was caught five times turning into its driveway.
In response to questions about field testing of the device, the department spokesperson said “several validations and checks are undertaken prior to infringements being issued from TRSCs (transportable road safety cameras).”
Several rural MPs, including Katter’s Australian Party’s Knuth, have brought the issue to state parliament, warning that car-dependent regional motorists are fed up with automated speeding fines.
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