The Victorian State Opposition suggested a while back that the Brumby government are using speed cameras for revenue raising. No, really, they did!

This was based on the 2009-10 Budget papers, which predict revenue from fines will increase from $317M to $437M. Breaking it down, it means that every minute a motorist will be caught speeding and that the state coffers will ring to the tune of $1.2 million every single day.

It’s an old complaint and no-one should be surprised to see it dragged out in an election year, but how much truth is there to this claim? Do speed cameras have any impact on the road toll?

The Victorian road toll was under 300 last year, for the first time in history, and, despite all the back slapping in Spring Street and TAC offices, this could equally be attributed to standardised passive and active safety equipment in vehicles and improvements to roads.

The new Holden Ute received five stars in the latest ANCAP safety rating. Ten years ago the Holden Ute would have exploded if you mentioned the word ANCAP within its hearing. A Mercedes-Benz C-Class was a two star car ten years ago. Now they are considering bringing in a six star system just to cover Mercedes and other European brands. Ten years ago the humble airbag only existed in high end luxury models. Renault now has an airbag which protects your knees.

Also, interestingly, speed is not the biggest cause of collisions, although it is likely to be involved in many collisions. The most likely cause (48% of all accidents according to the RTA in NSW) is “Distraction outside the vehicle” - as in: Oooh! Look at the puppy *crash*

However, concentrating more on speed and speed cameras, let’s take a look at how Victoria’s use of speed cameras compares to the United Kingdom. Our road toll was 290 last year; the United Kingdom’s was around 1,000. The percentage of our population killed on our roads: 0.0052%; the United Kingdom managed just 0.0018% and speeding fines in the UK totalled £115 million (roughly $250 million AUD).

In other words, our government took nearly twice the revenue from ten times less people, and we still have more road deaths per capita.

How does the UK manage this? Well, if we are considering this in terms of speed cameras, it could be the way that their cameras are used. They place cameras at identified black spots – where there is a history of serious collisions and other policing methods have been tried and failed reduce the number of accidents. The speed cameras are placed in plain view, then painted bright yellow and signs announce their presence to approaching drivers.

Over 30% of Victorian speeding fines are issued by hidden cameras – unmarked cars parked behind overpasses, skulking behind bushes and so on. In most cases the driver doesn’t even know they’ve been caught until they get the notification two or three weeks later.

If someone is travelling at a ridiculous speed, gets flashed by a speed camera, collides with another vehicle two kilometres down the road and wipes out an entire family, exactly what has the speed camera done to improve road safety?

In the same scenario in the UK, the driver spots a bright yellow speed camera, slows down, avoids a ticket and also avoids the family travelling on the opposite side of the road.

The Victorian government doesn’t publish any useful statics about speeding in relation to the Road Toll, but the NSW government does. The graph below combines data from the NSW RTA and DTF websites to demonstrate the relationship between traffic fines and road death, or more accurate, that there isn’t one.

Keep in mind that speeding deaths are poorly defined, but appear to be made up of the number of deaths in accidents where speed was involved, but not necessarily a causal factor (eg, “Oooh, look at the puppy” is less likely to cause a fatal accident at 40km/hr than it is at 140km/hr).

Nevertheless, a significant increase in fine revenue doesn’t seem to correlate to any movement in speed related deaths in NSW over the last 7 years. Even if you argued that there is a delayed effect and the rise in fines after 2004 led to the decreased road toll from 2006, the jump in 2009 appears to disprove this.

Revenue from fines is less than 2% of the total Victorian state budget, and probably doesn’t cause the same income addiction that gambling (about 13% of state income) does. However, while revenue raising is siphoning resources away from less profitable but more effective methods of reducing the road toll, the Brumby government should be called to account for their actions. Especially in an election year.

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