Authority To Investigate Speed Camera Practice

Police Complaints Authority To Investigate Speed Camera Practice

Claims that speed cameras are operated to give the trucking industry an advantage have been passed on to the Police Complaints Authority for investigation.

The claims are to be published in the July issue of DRIVER magazine and refer to a practice by speed camera operators which warns truck drivers when they're being targeted.

"Speed cameras are set to be triggered at plus 10% of the open road speed limit for passenger cars," says DRIVER magazine editor Allan Dick. "This means that trucks and other vehicles with lower speed limits often get away with exceeding their limits by substantially more than the 10% leeway given to passenger car drivers.

"The Police say that speed camera operators frequently manually select the speed camera operating speed to target speeding trucks, but DRIVER magazine says truck drivers are covertly warned when that occurs.

"I recently followed a truck and trailer unit at 110km/h past a speed camera on the open road and it escaped detection. This unit has a legal speed of 80km/h which means the driver was exceeding the speed limit by 37%. If a private motorist was to have exceeded the speed limit by that percentage it would be a very costly experience."

"I stopped and spoke to the speed camera operator who said they can identify trucks and manually set the speed camera target speed but that it was a waste of time because they catch nobody."

"The speed camera operator said that they were under instructions to open the tail gate of the speed camera vehicle and to connect up the camera flash unit to warn truck drivers they were in a manual camera operating mode."

"The speed camera operator told me that when the first truck driver sees the tail gate open he is onto his radio telephone to warn other truck drivers of the situation.

"DRIVER forwarded a copy of the claims on to Police Superintendent Steve Fitzgerald for his comments and he passed the claims on to the Police Complaints Authority for investigation.

The matter's being handled by Judge I A Borrin.

For further information, contact:
Allan Dick
Editor DRIVER
021 753 126
(09) 630 7012

editor@drivermagazine.co.nz