Mobile speed cameras nabbing more drivers just going over the limit

Since December 2020 mobile speed cameras have been operating without any warning signs, a decision which has led to a huge increase in the number of speeding fines.

At some Illawarra locations fine revenue jumped by as much as 6000 per cent compared to the same period a year earlier.

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Office of State Revenue data on speeding fines from mobile speed cameras indicate that most of that spike comes from motorists caught going less than 10 kilometres over the limit.

For instance, in the 2020-21 financial year so far, at a mobile camera stationed in Bellambi Lane at Bellambi 51 drivers were caught doing less than 10 kilometres over the limit, compared to 27 for the entire 2019-20 financial year.

Those 51 drivers represent 83 per cent of all the speeders caught by the camera and they coughed up $6765 in fines, 70 per cent of the $9615 in revenue from that camera in this financial year.

It's a similar story across a number of Illawarra mobile speed camera locations.

A mobile speed camera set up along Lawrence Hargrave Drive at Coledale nabbed just six drivers doing less than 10 kilometres over the limit in the last financial year.

So far this financial year that number is up to 76 - which is 93 per cent of all the speeders caught by that camera.

The revenue jump from that Coledale camera jumped too - from $726 to $9348.

At Gladstone Avenue in Coniston, the number of speeders caught doing less than 10 kilometres over jumped more than 700 per cent from 14 to 123.

That equated to an almost 1000 per cent climb in revenue from $1694 to $18,081 and represented 77 per cent of all speeders nabbed at that location.

Tara McCarthy, Transport for NSW Deputy Secretary for Safety, Environment and Regulation stated there was "no such thing as safe speeding".

"There's a lot of focus on how many people are being fined when the real issue here is how many people are driving above the limit and putting their own and other's lives at risk," Ms McCarthy said.

"In a head-on crash between two vehicles, there is a five per cent risk that a driver or passenger will be killed at 60km/h, 10 per cent risk at 70km/h, and an 80 per cent risk at 90km/h."

She said crash fatalities had stayed low in the first four months of 2021 when compared with the same period last year when this period had the bushfires and COVID shutdown which saw the number of vehicles on the road drop by half.