Don’t speed or you’ll be fined

NO ONE likes receiving a speeding ticket, whether it’s in town, in a school zone or on the highway.

Tickets can be issued by patrolling police officers or they can be received in the mail after a driver has been caught on camera via mobile units, fixed units and by officers operating portable cameras within police vehicles or in places such as median strips.

The police, the government and peak state motoring body, the RACQ, say that speed cameras are a vital tool to slow down drivers and are usually deployed at known speeding and crash sites.

Speeding is one of the fatal five and that’s why cameras are operating all over the place.

Take an extended drive over a weekend and it is very likely that you will pass at least one camera in use, probably several over a 200-300km journey.

To ram home the message about speeding the Cairns Post reveals the 92 locations between Port Douglas and Gordonvale. There are more on the Tablelands and south to the Cassowary Coast.

Often drivers pass them on the way to and from work in Cairns and in towns.

Some say it is blatant revenue raising (about $160m a year) but the government says all revenue raised from camera detected offences has to be used for road safety projects aimed at reducing Queensland’s road toll under legislation.

About 60 people die because of speed-related crashes in Queensland every year and hundreds are seriously injured.

It’s simple really. If you don’t speed, you won’t be fined.