This camera rakes in the fines
In the battle for speed camera supremacy, Wellington’s Ngauranga Gorge camera reigns supreme when it comes to ticketing drivers, earning the Government almost $2.4 million in the process.
A previous top performer, the camera on Whitford Brown Ave in Porirua, slid down the rankings to fifth during a year when fixed and mobile speed cameras issued
573,971 tickets nationwide and pumped more than $38m into the Government’s coffers.
Police have, under the Official Information Act, released details of the country’s top 20 speed cameras - both in terms of tickets issued and money generated during the financial year to July.
On both counts the Ngauranga Gorge’s fixed camera, which keeps watch over State Highway 1 in and out of Wellington, swept to a convincing win with a tally of
27,232 tickets issued totalling $2,387,700.
Cameras across the Wellington region were well represented in the top 20, occupying six spots including two cameras on the main road in and out of the Lower Hutt suburb of Wainuiomata.
One of those Wainuiomata cameras has a reputation for being, arguably, the most hated speed camera in the country having been shot twice, beaten and sawn off.
Auckland speed cameras took nine spots, including seven of the top 10. One of those cameras, on Ngapipi Rd, came in sixth, racking up 9763 tickets worth $694,220, despite going live in only February, seven months into the financial year.
Speed cameras in Waikato, Tasman and Rangitikei also made the top 20 list.
Road safety campaigner Clive Matthew-Wilson, editor of The Dog and Lemon Guide, said speed cameras served only to undermine faith in police, who looked like revenue-gatherers.
‘‘If you ask the average voter the major cause of road deaths they’d probably say, ‘illegal speeding’. In fact, the reverse is true. About 80 per cent of the road toll occurs below, not above, the speed limit,’’ he said.
‘‘Of the 20 per cent of accidents that occur above the speed limit, almost all are caused by either yobbos, impaired drivers or outlaw motorcyclists,’’ MatthewWilson said.
Ticketing drivers who had drifted slightly over the speed limit had been a ‘‘dismal’’ failure, he said.
Road policing national operations manager Peter McKennie rejected the revenue gathering claim, saying police simply wanted to make sure people got to their destination safely. Most drivers understood this, he said.
The South Island’s low placing on the rankings was largely because it was only now getting second generation fixed cameras, meaning it had been relying on mobile cameras that moved around and generated less tickets in individual spots.