Page 2682 - Week 09 - Wednesday, 26 September 2007
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The signage which is out there at the moment with respect to the latest type of speed cameras is not available to the public when they come across mobile speed cameras and not available when they come across police officers. The signage, from memory, is about 400 metres and 100 metres from the actual cameras themselves. That is from my own testing of the one on the parkway.
The location of these cameras is determined, as I said, by a speed survey. People who travel on the parkway, for example, would know that they go across the little strips of plastic and that actually registers the speed. The highest speed determined across that particular area was 228 kilometres an hour, and the mean was, I think from memory, around 116 kilometres an hour for at least 15 per cent of the vehicles surveyed. There were about 16,000 vehicles assessed over the period and half of them were speeding.
What lessons have we learned? We learned that just having the one type of mobile speed camera was not going to change driver behaviour sufficiently. That is why we ended up with the red light speed cameras at the intersections. We also felt that we needed to have a more visible deterrent. We want people to slow down, so cameras are being installed on the high-volume, high-speed highways, with signage.
There has been some comment in the media recently about the actual signage. I can advise the Assembly that I have instructed the department to change the signage to make sure that it is consistent with those signs in New South Wales. So if members wish to find out what they look like, they can go along Lanyon Drive on the way to Queanbeyan, because there is a big speed camera on a pole there. It is in the high-volume, high-speed area. We are actually merely going along with the national trend.
MR PRATT: Thank you, Mr Speaker. Minister, will you make public the methodology and crash data used to justify the placement of fixed speed cameras in the ACT?
MR HARGREAVES: Mr Speaker, I am just seeing whether I have it about my person, because, if I do, I am quite happy to advise the chamber. With your indulgence, I will just look again. Mr Speaker, in Tuggeranong, the Monaro Highway near the Hindmarsh overpass, the speed limit there is 100 kilometres an hour. The highest speed recorded was 236 kilometres an hour. At Hume—
Mr Pratt: What about the crash data? What about the cash data from that area?
MR HARGREAVES: Mr Speaker, I am trying to answer Mr Pratt’s question. If he would just hold his horses and hold his water, he will find out a few things. Now, at Hume, in an 80-kilometre zone, the highest speed recorded was 156 kilometres an hour; Tuggeranong Parkway, near the Hindmarsh overpass, the highest speed recorded, 223 kilometres an hour; near the Cotter Road overpass—which is the one that I presume Mr Pratt would know, I guess—228 kilometres an hour; Gungahlin, the Barton Highway between Gold Creek Road and Gundaroo, highest speed, 199 kilometres an hour. Mr Speaker, these are significant high speeds. As I said, crash data and high volume, high speed. The Tuggeranong Parkway at Hindmarsh Drive—
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