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EXPOSED: The secret locations where undercover cameras are raking in MILLIONS in fines – here are the three spots where you’re most likely to get caught
- Mobile speed cameras without warning signs or markings working overtime
- NSW Government has taken more than six times the fines year-on-year
- Fines rocket from $400,000 in December 2019 to $2.5million in December 2020
Speeding fines dished out to motorists in New South Wales have skyrocketed more than 600 per cent since the removal of mobile speed camera warning signs.
The changes were announced in November with latest figures revealing that in December 2020 mobile speed cameras raked in $2.5million.
In December 2019, when motorists still had the portable reflective warning signs 250m before the camera to help them, the fines only brought in $400,000.
Mobile speed cameras don’t have warning signs in NSW and are increasingly being stripped of their reflective markings. This raised fine revenue by more than six times month-on-month
Removing the mobile warning signs has increased NSW Government fine revenue by a total of 6.1 times.
The highest earning location for mobile speed cameras was the Hume Highway at Casula, which fined people $80,446 in December alone.
Mobile cameras stationed at Penshurst St, Chatswood, in the city’s north, took $77,000 from speeding motorists in December.
Reflective markings and portable warning signs are being stripped from mobile speeding cameras making them difficult for motorists to see (stock image)
Pennant Hills Rd at Carlingford in Sydney’s northwest raised $38,820.
Warning signs for fixed speed cameras remain in place.
Some mobile speed cameras can still be spotted by the huge reflective signage on the vehicle – but the fleet are being stripped of their markings.
The 45 mobile speed cameras in NSW have also had their hours tripled, from 7,000 hours per month to 21,000 hours per month.
They can also now catch drivers speeding in both directions.
Roads Minister Andrew Constance said in November when the changes were announced that it wasn’t about revenue raising but about saving lives, with the signs removed over a 12-month period to change motoring behaviour.
National motoring editor for Caradvice.com.au Joshua Dowling wrote in January that in reality they were removed almost overnight.
‘No speed camera cars have been seen since with the warning signs,’ he wrote.
Vehicles hosting mobile speed cameras are being stripped of their markings – making it harder for motorists to detect (pictured, a mobile speed checking car)
Fixed signs remain in place for permanent speed cameras – but not for mobile sites
Monash University Accident Research Centre modelling found the changes could save between 34 and 43 lives a year.
Mr Dowling said NSW had posted its lowest road toll in 97 years in 2020, before the signs were removed.
NRMA spokesman Peter Khoury said it was not good policy as cameras were put at crash-prone locations with signs which educated drivers.
‘We’ve lost all of that education, we still have the enforcement but all too often people don’t find they’ve done the wrong thing till two or three weeks later,’ he told 9News Sydney.
‘It will catch people, it just won’t change their behaviour.’
