Top speed cameras revealed

The speed camera on Kennedy Rd in Napier has issued more than 1300 speeding notices in the past year, making it the busiest in Hawke's Bay, but the AA warns this does not mean it's a success.

Figures released to Hawke's Bay Today under the Official Information Act show the Kennedy Rd camera, between Riverbend Rd and Konini Crescent, has snapped 1304 notices for speeding during the past year, while the second busiest was the Pakowhai Road camera, issuing 1069.

AA spokesman Simon Lambourne said although there were many critics of speed cameras, the cameras did "reduce crashes and save lives".

But he questioned whether the cameras netting more than 1000 tickets in a year were doing their job correctly.

"That's a huge number of motorists speeding and, therefore, getting tickets," he said. "The whole point of having a camera there is to slow people down."

A different approach he suggested was to make speed camera zones visible and clearly marked to motorists.

"It may mean that a ticket is not issued, but fundamentally they're not there to issue tickets, they're there to deliver a behaviour change in the speed motorists are travelling.

" If anything, a speed camera site that issues a lot of tickets is not a success, it's actually a failure, because you're not getting the motorists to do the one thing we want them to do, and that is slow down."

The Kennedy Rd and Pakowhai Rd cameras were the only two in Hawke's Bay to break the 1000 threshold in the past year.

The next three busiest were on Taradale Rd near Tamatea High School; State Highway 5 near Titiokura; and State Highway 2 near Mangateretere.

They issued 999, 961 and 934 speeding notices, respectively.

Speed cameras were not the only initiative that could help the overall goal of reducing motorists' speeds on Hawke's Bay roads.

Mr Lambourne said road speed limits should be "self-explaining" so if a motorist missed the speed sign, their surroundings provided a clue as to how fast they should be travelling.

Setting the correct speed limits for the road was also important.

"Undoubtedly there are many locations across the country where they're fulfilling that purpose but there are locations where there are excessive numbers of tickets being issued," he said.

To overcome public scepticism about speed cameras as simply revenue gathering, he suggested the revenue generated from speeding tickets could be ring fenced and used exclusively towards achieving road safety outcomes.