'Bus cam' promoted as fairer lane option

A car ignores the bus lane as it heads up Albert Street in central Auckland. Photo / Sarah Ivey

Bus-mounted cameras are being mooted by an Automobile Association official as a fairer way to monitor the unlawful use of bus lanes.

Senior analyst Mark Stockdale, whose organisation believes car drivers turning into side streets should be allowed to use bus lanes for more than 50m, said yesterday that the cameras should be used only to penalise "gross offenders".

Those were drivers who had no intention of turning left, and who were impeding the flow of buses.

Although his idea was not an official AA proposal, he considered it worth pursuing "rather than ticketing everyone who uses a bus lane for more than 50m when in fact they might have a legitimate reason for being there".

The suggestion comes as Auckland City Council faces a furious backlash from drivers fined a total of $4.2 million over 12 months - at $150 a time - after being caught on kerbside video cameras in bus lanes.

Mr Stockdale said surveillance cameras could either be triggered by bus drivers or kept rolling continuously, before being downloaded by council officers.

They should be paid for from fines, and installed at no cost to fleet operators on a limited number of buses plying busy routes at peak times.

Although the Auckland Tramways Union considers the idea worth investigating, NZ Bus would not comment yesterday and the Bus and Coach Association was guarded.

Chief executive Raewyn Bleakley said that although the association supported reasonable measures to keep bus lanes clear "without unnecessarily impeding or disadvantaging other traffic for revenue collection", it might be too risky to expect bus drivers to make decisions about operating cameras while at the wheel.

"I would be surprised if the Government would see fit to give bus drivers that onerous responsibility."

She accepted that continuous data collection cameras may be less risky but said the industry would need to be consulted fully on any such proposal.

Auckland City transport committee chairman Ken Baguley said although cameras might be a good idea, the council was under an obligation to follow regulations imposed by the Transport Agency, which allowed car drivers no more than 50m before turning left from a bus lane.

Tramways Union acting president Perry Davis said most problems were caused by car drivers parking in bus lanes.

He believed bus-mounted cameras were worth considering, but said another solution would be for council enforcement officers to set up surveillance posts on the opposite sides of intersections to oncoming traffic.

They should then fine only drivers who failed to turn left from the bus lanes.

Auckland driver Amitabh Madan, who has received a demand for $150 for using a bus lane to turn into a petrol station and considers himself "one of the victims of the city council's extortionist regime", said a camera pointing towards oncoming traffic did not capture footage of his lawful manoeuvre.

He said the entry to the station was about 20m back from the intersection of Main Rd and Great South Rd in Ellerslie, leaving him well within the 50m tolerance zone.