Photo / RNZ, Alexander Robertson
By Giles Dexter, RNZ
Not a single warning sign has been installed near fixed speed cameras, three and a half years since the policy was first announced.
In November 2019, then-associate transport minister Julie Anne Genter said a new ‘no surprises’ approach to safety cameras would introduce warning signs in high-risk areas.
It was announced alongside a suite of programmes to tackle unsafe speeds, including reducing speed limits around schools, rolling out more cameras on unsafe roads, and streamlining the process for communities and local authorities to determine the appropriate speed limits for their regions.
While progress has been made on those other issues, it appears the warning sign rollout has not even begun.
Last month, in a Written Parliamentary Question to then-police minister Stuart Nash, National’s transport spokesperson Simeon Brown asked how many fixed speed cameras had been signposted with warning signs each year, for the past five years.
Nash responded: “I am advised that police has not signposted any fixed safe speed cameras with warning signs in the past five years.”
Police have responsibility for the ownership and operation of speed cameras, although it is currently in the process of being transferred to Waka Kotahi. Police will still be in charge of infringements.
Since the question was lodged, Nash has been replaced as police minister by Ginny Andersen.
“I have recently been made aware of this, and have requested a briefing from police,” Andersen told RNZ in a statement.
Brown said the government had become too distracted, and failed to deliver.
“They said they were going to do something, and it hasn’t been done.”
Brown said National was supportive of the warning signs, which would give motorists an opportunity to check their speed, and slow down if they were going too fast.
“This government is so focused on reducing speed limits, but they’re not focused on actually enforcing the ones that already exist, which should be the focus in these areas. There’s enforcement, warning, giving motorists the opportunity to reduce their speed to keep all motorists safe,” he said.
The Automobile Association, which has continually advocated for warning signs, said there was no reason for no progress to be made after this many years.
Its road safety spokesperson Dylan Thomsen said many other countries had warning signs, and a substantial proportion of the New Zealand public still tended to regard speed enforcement as a revenue gathering exercise.
“By putting the signs up and saying ‘we’re doing everything we can, giving drivers every opportunity to check their speed and make sure they’re doing the right speed, and slow down if they need to’ at these high-risk crash black spots, then that really changes the way the public perceive the speed camera enforcement at those locations,” Thomsen said.
“And it also means hopefully we’re going to have less speeding in those locations. And if you do get caught you really have absolutely nobody to blame but yourself.”
Thomsen acknowledged there has been a pandemic through the period since the policy was announced, which meant some things were paused or halted.
But he maintained rolling out the signs could have been done relatively quickly and easily.
“We don’t need to reinvent the wheel on this. There’s signs that are in use in other countries, we could look to get the signs and get them made up and get them out on the roads. It could have been a matter of months, really, if you were going to make this a high priority.”
The prime minister, who was police minister between June 2022 and January 2023, said he did not have anything further on their rollout, but agreed cameras were a deterrent and not a revenue gathering exercise.
“I recall it being in a relatively early briefing, a reference to it being in a relatively early briefing I got as the minister of police, but I don’t recall getting more up to date information on it,” Chris Hipkins said.