Kawakawa speed camera NZ’s first to have warning signage

NZTA Waka Kotahi contractors installing and turning on the advanced traffic camera in Kawakawa. Photo / David Fisher

Northland’s newest fixed speed camera in Kawakawa will be the first in New Zealand to have warning signage - almost five years after the former government promised all permanent cameras would.

While it’s good news for the region given it has the country’s worst rate of road deaths and serious injury, motoring group AA is asking where the rest of the signage is for the roughly 60 other permanent cameras nationwide.

In November 2019, then-associate transport minister Julie Anne Genter announced a ‘no surprises’ approach to safety cameras that would introduce warning signs in high-risk areas.

AA road safety spokesperson Dylan Thomsen was baffled that all these years later, the only camera to benefit is the one on State Highway 1, between Kawakawa and Moerewa, which is still in trial mode.

The camera is set to have a sign that reads: “safety camera operating”.

“It has been a long, slow and frustrating process,” Thomsen said.

AA has long advocated for signage at permanent speed cameras because of the impact the organisation had seen signs have on reducing speeding.

The best explanation, Thomsen said, were the ‘reduce speed now’ signs near the camera at Kauri on SH1 north of Whangārei.

“What we saw was in 2018 before those signs were up, there was 47,000 people ticketed for going too fast past that camera. Ever since those signs were put up there hasn’t been more than 23,000 tickets issued in a year.

“We think those signs helped cut the amount of speeding at that site in half.”

AA believed having signs that said ‘safety camera area’ may have a bigger effect than ‘reduce speed now’, Thomsen said.

The association did not understand why the Kawakawa camera would have signage and not others.

“It’s just been ridiculous that we’ve had all these years go by and somehow it’s been too hard to get signage up at these camera locations.”

The NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA) confirmed that all fixed speed cameras will be signposted as cameras are transferred to the agency from police.

NZTA is in the one to two year process of taking over the existing network of about 150 cameras operated by police.

“The operation of speed cameras has not yet transferred from police to NZTA,” an NZTA spokesperson said.

Thomsen said once signs were in place at cameras nationwide, AA expected to see a big reduction in the number of motorists speeding in those high-risk locations.

Transport Minister Simeon Brown told media on Wednesday that putting up warning signage had stalled due to a “disagreement between police and [NZTA]”.

He labelled it “bureaucratic nonsense” and said he would work with both agencies to remedy the situation.