New Zealand First Wants Assurances Over New Speed Cameras
new-zealand-first-party
Thu Jan 19 2017 13:00:00 GMT+1300 (New Zealand Daylight Time)
New Zealand First Wants Assurances Over New Speed Cameras
Thursday, 19 January 2017, 1:22 pm
Press Release: New Zealand First Party
Rt Hon Winston Peters
New Zealand First Leader
Member of Parliament for Northland
19 JANUARY 2017
New Zealand First Wants Assurances Over New Speed Cameras
New Zealand First says the government must release details of 35 new fixed speed cameras given a recent Police OIA response, showed that fixed and mobile cameras generated just under $30m worth of tickets in a little over ten months.
“Are these cameras about safety or revenue, because Police did not get the $29,459,690 that fixed and mobile cameras generated in the ten months to 7 November 2016. The government took all the money,” says New Zealand First Leader and Northland Member of Parliament, Rt Hon Winston Peters.
“This is why the government cannot hide behind that old kernel of it being a Police operational matter. We want the Minister and Prime Minister to look Kiwis in the eye and tell us that these 35 new cameras will only go into the 35 deadliest crash locations.
“Anything else means one thing – revenue – because in a little over ten-months, the 15 existing fixed cameras generated 125,366 tickets and $9,184,300. The top three sites being Great South Road Auckland between Beatty Street and Bairds Road ($1,957,090); State Highway One (Ngauranga Gorge) Wellington ($1,621,860); and Wellington again at Whitford Brown Avenue, ironically near the Police College ($1,189,940).
“Yet over the same period, the more labour and capital intensive mobile camera sites generated 308,251 tickets, and $20,275,390. That’s almost two and a half times the number of tickets over the fixed sites for just over twice the revenue.
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“This is why we want assurances. Mobile cameras on Auckland’s Wairau Road generated 8,221 tickets worth $578,910, of which over $178,120 come in January 2016 alone. There is a definite bias towards the month of January in mobile camera tickets. In 2016 for the ten months of which the statistics were given, January generated twice the ticket revenue as other months or over four million dollars ($4,062,670.
“What would a fixed camera operating 24/7 generate if installed at some of these sites?
“New Zealanders need to know the logic behind the 35 new fixed camera locations because the information suggests they’re not focused on ‘where accidents occur’ but where revenue is generated” says Mr Peters.
NOTE: Police OIA spreadsheet attached.
Copy_of_121558104__Speed_Camera_Data__Mobile_and_Fixed.xlsx
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