NSW state government treasurer Eric Roozendaal delivered a budget which had a hidden sting, namely an estimated doubling of revenue from traffic fines. This would allegedly be achieved by the deployment of mobile speed cameras. The government claimed that the use of mobile speed cameras would reduce the road toll, however many critics stated that these devices were merely revenue-raising methods and would not reduce accidents or fatalities on state roads.
Of course mobile speed cameras are nothing more than revenue-raising devices. What has more deterrent - the visible sight of cops on the roads or a hidden camera snapping you and then sending you a fine a month later? This is nonsense. Speed cameras, both fixed and mobile, have not reduced accidents or fatalities anywhere. They are a form of taxation, nothing more.
The claims of the state government about the life-saving use of mobile speed cameras should be treated with the same contempt as its claim that police do not have quotas set for booking motorists.
The Lane Cove Tunnel (LCT) has been sold for more than $630 million just months after the former operator, Connector Motorways, was placed in receivership with crippling debts. Transurban announced this morning it had bought the 3.6-kilometre tunnel, subject to RTA approval.
The company, which also operates a major tollway in Melbourne and Sydney's M2 motorway, said the deal includes the tunnel's assets and the 27-year toll concession. The tunnel opened in 2007 as a private-public partnership with the NSW government, but suffered from weaker than expected traffic numbers.
In fact what should have happened was that the LCT should have been resumed by the state government and turned into a freeway, as it should have been in the first place. The way this asinine project was implemented was a disgrace - narrowing Epping Road to a one-lane track to try and force motorists into that iniquitous tunnel for a fee.
I still advocate boycotting every toll road, including the LCT and sending the operators broke. It's so easy to do and you will save a lot of money and spend hardly any extra time on the roads by avoiding all toll roads. In my profession, I travel all over Sydney and to the Blue Mountains, Newcastle, Wollongong all the time and I just use my GPS to avoid toll roads. I reckon that I have probably saved anywhere between $1000 to $2500 per year by doing this. You can do the same.
Speeding fines will be raised 5 per cent and mobile speed cameras rolled out across the state from July as part of a Government push to curb the soaring road toll. The moves are part of a $170 million road safety package released in the wake of The Daily Telegraph's I Promise campaign as the state's toll climbs to 104 already this year.
Almost half of all accidents are caused by speeding - more even than alcohol-related crashes - and the Government wants to make breaking the speed limit as stigmatised and frowned-upon as drink-driving.
Mobile speed cameras using obsolete "wet" film were phased out from 2005, leaving NSW the only state not to use them. From July 19, six marked vans will hit the streets, eventually clocking up more than 12,000 hours on the roads every month.
Motorists will be told in advance about the target areas but not when the vans will be there. The speed-camera function at digital red-light safety camera sites will be turned on as cameras are installed.
This is merely another blatant grab for money by the NSW government. How will any speed cameras modify the behaviour of speeders if they don't find out that they have been booked until a month or two after they have committed the offence? Between the time a speeder is pinged and when he receives the infringement notice, he will not have modified his behaviour and might kill a number of people on the road by his speeding.
It is like the way the cops "enforce" school zones. A cop will park this cars at the departure end of the zones and book motorists when they have already sped through them. How the hell is that going to prevent a speeder killing a schoolkid on a school zone and then getting pinged? If the cop would park before the entry point of the school zone and have some flashing lights on, speeders would see him and slow down. But that doesn't bring in any revenue from speeding tickets, so it is easy to see that all these strategies are just there as more taxes on motorists.
It's the same with alcohol. The government admits that alcohol plays a huge part in the road toll, yet does not do much to alleviate this problem. Pilots must not drink alcohol at least 8 hours before flying, so what's wrong with this for motorists, as it's far more dangerous to drive a car than to fly an aircraft? But of course alcohol sales brings revenue to the government, which puts money well in front of lives.
As soon as the mobile speed camera hotspots are published, I will produce a TomTom POI database that can be downloaded from this website and motorists can use it in conjunction with the fixed speed and red-light camera POIs to protect themselves against this blatant revenue-raising grab by the NSW government
Drivers in Victoria will be able to use smartphones as in-car navigation tools after VicRoads backed down on a proposed blanket ban on mobile GPS devices. The revised Victorian mobile phone rules, which come into force on November 9, were announced by VicRoads in newspaper advertisements over the weekend.
The previously announced rule, which drew international media attention, banned drivers from using mobile GPS applications as navigation systems. The use of mobile-phone GPS systems is becoming more widespread, and the ban was seen as a threat to the growing market in smartphone applications and services.
The changes will now allow drivers to use their mobile as a GPS device as long as it sits in a cradle or is remotely operated. Under the new laws, drivers will be prohibited from holding their phones or resting them on their lap, even if they are turned off. Drivers can still make and receive phone calls or listen to music if the phone is sitting in a specially designed cradle. Any other use of the phone, such watching videos, text messaging or playing games while driving, is banned.
The new rules will affect smartphones that use GPS applications such as those made by TomTom, Navigon and Sygic, Ovi Maps; Whereis Navigator GPS service and any other service or software that enables a mobile phone to be used as an in-car navigation device. Drivers caught breaking the new laws will be fined $234 and lose three demerit points. In Victoria, the act of driving while using a mobile ranks among the state's top three driving offences.
It's hard to believe that people are still getting caught talking on mobile phones while driving and forking out those horrendous fines. Virtually every cellphone, even the cheap models, have built-in Bluetooth and Bluetooth hands-free car kits are cheap - Aldi was selling an excellent model for $49, which is a hell of a lot cheaper than the $234 fine imposed if caught driving and talking on a hand-held cellphone
However, it is gratifying to see that this insane VicRoads ruling banning the use of smartphone GPS under all circumstances has been overturned. I personally use my HTC Touch HD smartphone with TomTom Navigator 7 software in an excellent Clic-On car cradle that charges the phone as well. I also use a Blue-Ant Bluetooth car kit for hands-free phoning, so I will never be booked for holding and using a cellphone while driving
Using a smartphone with GPS means that it is never left in the car to be stolen, like regular GPS receivers, because I obviously always take my phone with me when I leave my car. The Clic-On cradle does not look anything like a GPS holder, so thieves take one look and move on. Of course having the GPS on my phone means that I can use it anywhere I go, away from my car or interstate by plane in any town or city and it sure beats carrying a separate standalone GPS receiver.
Sydney's speed camera torchers have struck again in spectacular fashion, wiping out one of the city's most hatest revenue-raising cameras. The speed camera in Mosman is the fifth camera believed to have been set alight by vandals on Sydney's north shore in the past two months.
A city-bound fixed speed caera halfway up Spit Hill is believed to have been deliberately set alight at about 2:00am today. Police attended the scene, taking photos and scouring the scene for evidence.
It was the fifth speed camera attack in the area since the start of June. A fixed camera on Warringah Road at Forestville was set on fire a fortnight ago. At the start of July, somebody torched the northbound camera on Pittwater Road outside Narrabeen Lakes Public School. And another two speed cameras, outside Narrabeen North Public School and Narrabeen Sports High School, were set alight at the beginning of June.
Police said the Spit Hill camera had suffered smoke damage in the fire. It has been estimated the damage bill for each of the four previous attacks would run between $15,000-$35,000 per camera.
Spit Road speed traps have long drawn the ire of motorists, with the State Government removing one camera in 2005 to prevent drivers being caught twice for the same speeding offence. Another camera on Spit Hill removed in 2005 was found to be defective after it booked "speeding" buses that were incapable of reaching the speeds captured on camera.
The controversial Spit Road camera was ranked as one of the top 10 revenue raisers in the state in 2006-07, earning more than $1 million that year.
Any reasonable person knows full well that speed and red light cameras are installed for the express purpose of revenue-raising, a form of taxation by the government under the blatantly false pretext of reducing accidents. Virtually all independent studies on speed cameras have shown that they do not achieve the desired reduction in driver behaviour modification until far too late, if at all. Virtually all independent studies of red light cameras have shown a marked increase in accidents at intersections where they were installed.
It is no wonder that some people who realise that speed and red light cameras are installed under a false pretext are aggrieved enough to take action against this form of government-instigated robbery. These people are not vandals at all, they are actually righting a wrong inflicted upon the motoring public. All I can say to those people who are torching the speed cameras is - more power to you.
All new cars in NSW could soon be fitted with anti-speeding devices that would make breaking the limit almost impossible and render speeding fines a thing of the past. The NSW Government is hoping to make the speed limiting devices - undergoing trials in NSW this year - a standard safety feature in new cars in the same way airbags are now.
If rolled out across the board the device has the potential to not only phase out speeding altogether but also deprive the Government of tens of millions of dollars in revenue. The Government collected more than $82 million in speeding fines last year, after issuing more than 700,000 infringement notices.
The "intelligent speed adaptation" devices put a trip between the accelerator and the engine and link it to a GPS system that has every NSW speed zone programmed into it. The device sounds a warning if the driver exceeds the speed limit. If the driver fails to slow down the system cuts power from the accelerator, capping it at the maximum limit. In cases of emergency there is an override system whereby the driver can either flick a switch or floor the accelerator to disable the safety device and put the car back in manual control. It can even be programmed to accommodate school zones, which change speed limits depending on the time of day.
Roads Minister Michael Daley said the devices could one day become standard in all new cars. "It may be that ISA could become a safety device offered by car manufacturers similar to the way air bags and ABS brakes have become safety features in the car industry," he said. "We believe this technology could have the potential to save lives which is why we're carrying out this very important trial. The technology could also help motorists avoid speeding fines."
Daley stated, "Speeding is the biggest killer on our roads, responsible for over 150 deaths on our roads last year. ISA technology uses satellites and in-car technology to help motorists stay within the speed limit."
The RTA, which has spent five years mapping out the speed limits, has just put out a tender for the supply of the devices and 100 private and public vehicles are being recruited for the trial.
Here is another piece of expensive insanity from the NSW Labor Governmemnt. Hard statistics show that less than 3% of accidents are attributed to excessive speed. A speed limiter is not going to address the problem of the other 97% of accidents whatsoever, yet it will remove the safety factor of having engine power on tap to get out of danger or to pass long trucks on single-lane highways. Such a device will certainly be responsible for killing more people than it might save. In danger situations, drivers do not have time to find and flick a switch - milliseconds of time may be the difference between a life saved or lost.
The speed limiter will allegedly control a car's maximum speed at school zones because they will be programmed into the on-board GPS. Sure, it sounds good, but how will this GPS know which school zone is active on a particular day, when public and private schools do not operate on the same days in many cases? This aspect alone shoots down the concept, but of course the NSW Government will doubtless still proceed with this stupidity, squandering even more of the state's dwindiing funds on yet another cockamamy Big Brother idea.
If speed limiters are eventually fitted to all cars, will the NSW Government remove all those redundant revenue-raising speed cameras, because logically no car will be capable of speeding? Nobody in their wildest dreams would imagine the NSW Government doing anything whatsoever to reduce its revenue, so one has to wonder what the real reason might be for fitting GPS devices to all cars. Could such devices be used for surveillance and tracking? Sure they could - and this is the biggest worry about this proposal, the further control of people by governments.
The NSW public really needs to deliver a message to the NSW Labor Government that enough is enough! Instead of squandering money on stupidity, the government ought to fix up some of the appalling roads in the state and thus make driving a lot safer than any speed limiter would achieve.
it has been revealed that a $9 billion roads plan to solve Sydney's transport and congestion problems was shelved by NSW Premier Nathan Rees in 2008 after Labor Party officials intervened to prevent tunnelling under sensitive electorates.
The Sydney Link Motorways plan, a three-tunnel network linking Sydney's west to the city and airport, had been approved by then roads minister Eric Roozendaal and transport minister John Watkins, according to a confidential Cabinet briefing paper obtained by The Daily Telegraph.
It was awaiting sign-off by Cabinet in September 2008, the week Morris Iemma was dumped as premier. It had also been given in-principle support by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Treasurer Wayne Swan six months earlier.
However, the Daily Telegraph was told that party officials had lobbied the Federal Minister for Infrastructure Anthony Albanese to withdraw support, after being warned by party officials in June 2008 that tunnelling under two state electorates, as well as his own safe federal seat, would be electoral suicide.
Tunnels would have been under construction in the state seat of Marrickville, held by his wife Deputy Premier Carmel Tebbutt, as well as Education Minister Verity Firth's neighbouring seat of Balmain, as the State Government went to the 2011 election. Both seats are at serious risk of being lost to the Greens.
Two senior government sources claimed that the party's general secretary Karl Bitar had told Mr Albanese it could not be allowed to go ahead and told Treasurer Eric Mr Roozendaal (then Roads Minister) the same thing. It is understood Mr Albanese lobbied Mr Roozendaal to ditch it.
"Bitar made it explicit. It couldn't be built because it would go under Albo's electorate, Carmel's electorate and Balmain," they said. But Mr Albanese denied having any conversation about the project with Mr Bitar. But he admitted he may have had discussions with Mr Roozendaal when he was Roads Minister.
How nice - and how typically Labor Party too. The people of Sydney, already suffering traffic congestion because of inept Labor bungling and collusion with private contractors to force motorists to use expensive tollways, now will not build a much-needed tunnel because of election concerns, not needs. What an utter pack of bastards this state Labor government is. The only thing they are interesting in is the next election, not the requirements of the community. However, one can assume with some certainty that these tunnels would have been tollways and avoided by any smart motorists, had they gone ahead and been built.
The problem is that most of the electorate are small-minded cretins who suffer from amnesia at election time and keep voting Labor back into office time and time again, even when Labor is screwing them into the ground in every way. it is an utter disgrace, but as the saying goes - you get the government you deserve, but unfortunately those sensible people who wouldn't vote for Labor in a fit are stuck with this rapacious and completely incompetent regime.
Motorists crossing the Sydney Harbour Bridge on Tuesday are nbow being charged a peak hour toll for the first time. Time-of-day tolling, which began at 6:30am on 27 January 2009, is allegedly designed to ease traffic congestion on Sydney's busiest road. However, most people and organisations such as the NRMA oppose the toll, believing it to be nothing more than a new tax which will do nothing to improve congestion.
"Time-of-day tolling will not help reduce congestion because there is no incentive for motorists to adjust their behaviour - even if they had a choice to do so," NRMA president Wendy Machin said. "The Government is making motorists pay $1 more during peak hour in an attempt to get people to drive later, yet the toll in the middle of the day has not fallen. Even if it was to fall, the reality is most motorists have to drive at the time they do to start work, collect their children from school or meet an appointment."
Ms Machin said leaving the car at home was not an option for many because of poor public transport options in north-west Sydney. In peak periods, from 6.30am to 9.30am and 4:00pm to 7:00pm Monday to Friday, motorists will pay $4 under the new toll system. An off-peak toll of $2.50 applies between 7:00pm and 6:30am Monday to Friday and between 8:00pm and 8:00am at weekends and on public holidays. A "shoulder" cost of $3 per car applies between 9:30am and 4pm Monday to Friday and 8am to 8:00pm on weekends and public holidays.
Of course this is nothing more than just another blatant tax grab. People who have to start work at 9:00am are not going to leave home at 6:00am, three hours earlier, just to save a dollar. Those same people who finish work at 5:00pm are not going to hang around until after 7:00pm to cross the Harbour Bridge to go home They will obviously just grit their teeth and pay this iniquitous highway robbery. The state Labor government has merely reinforced its position as the highest taxing regime in the nation's history, scrabbling around for opportunities to impose new taxes wherever possible.
The NSW taxpayer will now have to pay out more than $1 billion to the operators of the Sydney Harbour Tunnel because of yet another monumental NSW Labor Government fiasco.
The contract for Sydney's Harbour Tunnel will require the State Government to pay the operator more than $1 billion dollars over the next 14 years. The Harbour Tunnel contract was entered into in 1987 by the Labor government of former premier Barrie Unsworth.
As part of the deal the State Government must pay the operator the shortfall between the road tolls collected and those which were projected when the contract was drawn up. An Auditor-General's report has revealed nearly $60 million was paid this year to the operator.
The Auditor General Peter Achterstraat who released the figures says lessons must be learned from the contract. "It's not monopoly money," he said. "It is real hard cash. I think lessons have to be learned in relation to estimates of the amount of patronage that can occur."
This bunch of NSW Labor idiots never seem to learn from their blunders. They have wrecked the hospital system, the state infrastructure is a disaster, NSW is nearly bankrupt and every toll road is losing money hand over fist, yet they offered private toll orad operators guaranteed revenues.
Can anybody imagine the government asking a private store to open and if nothing is sold, the government will pay the store owner a fortune just to stay open? How dumb is that? But that's how dumb the NSW Labor Government is, because that is exactly what they did with the toll road operators and the NSW taxpayer will be paying for this moronic catastrophe for decades.
One has to wonder how much money might have wound up in Swiss bank accounts from kickbacks, because it is hard to believe that honest people would have voluntarily entered into such ridiculously one-sided contracts without getting something out of them. A Royal Commission needs to investigate every aspect of every road toll contract, the politicians who signed them and the advisors who recommended that the NSW Labor Government get involved in this lunacy.
The Daily Telegraph reported some very good news - that the Lane Cove Tunnel (LCT) is a step closer to going broke, due to a lack of traffic. Ratings agency Moody's Investors Service downgraded the underlying rating of the company backing the tunnel.
This just goes to show that resistance of motorists to being ripped off can send a toll road bankrupt, just as the Cross City Tunnel is now broke and hopefully will eventually become a freeway. Motorists quite rightly were enraged that Epping Road was literally destroyed by a conniving State government in collusion with the LCT operators to force motorists to use the LCT and motorists used the power of the boycott to send a strong message that they were not going to be bullied.
A new stealth speed camera was destroyed by angry road users while it was being tested. The camera, which has the potential to reap millions of dollars for the State Government, had been installed on Maroondah Highway, Croydon, and operates by laser sensors installed in roadside gutters only metres away.
It is promoted as being more accurate than other fixed speed cameras operating throughout the state. A single camera can picture any car travelling in one of three lanes, with two lasers gauging a car's lane and speed. The camera was set up about three months ago, but was defaced and then destroyed by angry road users before it could be tested.
On 05 November 2008, youths spray-painted the camera, resulting in another camera being installed to catch vandals. Ten days later, three motorists tied a chain around the camera and ripped it from its base with their white Subaru station wagon.
The claim being made for this new techology camera is that it is so much more accurate than speed cameras currently in use. This obviously means that existing speed cameras are not accurate enough, especially with the very small speed tolerance that Victoria Police allow before motorists are booked. This damaging admission could be used to overturn fines in court by motorists who are booked driving at a fairly slight margin, possibly no more than 10% over the posted speed limit.
Cash toll booths will be scrapped on the Sydney Harbour Bridge at the end of January 2008. The NSW Government is urging motorists to obtain E-tags, reaping not just the iniquitous $40 security deposits that will literally never be refunded, but saving a fortune at the same time on eliminating the cost of employing toll collectors.
The NSW Government is looking at making all toll roads cashless, thus indulging in some social engineering in the hope that motorists will not notice the amount of money they spend each time they drive on toll roads. There are obvious advantages to having cashless toll roads, simply because the delays at tolling points will be minimised, but the government is hoping that motorists tend to forget that they are driving on toll roads and that they only get angry and upset for a short time when they receive the toll bill.
Claus Salger, a retired engineer, successfully overturned a traffic fine in March this year for allegedly travelling 56km/h in a 50km/h zone in Raleigh Street, Westmeadows Victoria. He said he was travelling about 46km/h at the time.
Mr Salger used a speed camera operator's training manual, obtained under Freedom of Information, to prove in court that the reading was incorrect. He also acted as an expert witness in court this year to help another Melbourne motorist beat his fine.
Despite his negative experiences, Mr Salger said speed camera operators should not be targeted for the shortcomings of camera technicalities. "It's not their fault. All they do is sit there," he said. "They hand in their roll of film at the end of the day and it's out of their hands. The examination of the actual photograph is where the problem is." Mr Salger argued in the Melbourne County Court for speed camera training manuals to be made available to the public.
This matter just shows that if a person believes that he is unjustly booked for speeding by a defective speed camera, then he has a good chance to beat the fine. Of course governments put many obstacles in the way of people who seek justice, such as the ludicrous premise that radar speed cameras and guns are "scientific" instruments and therefore cannot be wrong. In fact, the opposite is true, that radar is certainly not infallible by any means. Therefore if motorists who believe that they have been unjustly booked by a radar speed camera or gun should fight the matter all the way, as there are many expert witnesses to testify as to the inaccuracy of radar devices and plenty of court precedents available.
There are many ways you can beat a speeding ticket, the general population believe that speed detection equipment used by police are accurate and guidelines and procedures are correctly followed. Not so, according to Brett Pownceby who recently beat a speeding ticket by providing speed data from his GPS satellite tracking device to the issuing police station.
Having examined the evidence, the police then withdrew the ticket, despite having argued previously that their guns were accurate. After the media covered the story, fearing a massive public outcry of citizens contesting their speeding tickets, the police changed their story once again, and stated that the ticket should not have been withdrawn.
The police informed the media that other motorists should not simply expect to have their speeding fines withdrawn by producing satellite tracking records. Of course the police were only protecting their backsides, but the events took another turn in the wrong direction when a Sydney court threw out a speeding case, once GPS readout were issued as evidence.
Opposition transport spokesman Terry Mulder said the case in point casts a big shadow over the accuracy of police radar guns. "How many innocent motorists who lack onboard GPS units have been wrongly fined by Steve Bracks and Bob Cameron's dodgy police radar guns?" he said. Victoria Police spokeswoman Natalie Webster argued that other motorist attempting to have their speeding tickets revoked using GPS data would be unsuccessful. "The production of a GPS report alone to avoid any speeding infringement is insufficient, and any application as such will be rejected," she said.
This statement from Ms Webster is nonsense, simply because in a court of law, hard evidence proving that a motorist was not speeding at the time he was booked by a police radar gun or fixed speed camera is completely valid. Ms Webster's statements are nothing more than an opinion and all motorists who can prove to a court that they were not speeding at the time they were booked will obviously have to win their cases.
Michael Simotas was booked by the police who claim he was driving at 85km/h in a 60km/h zone. Using his car's GPS tracking, he was able to beat the charge.
"I knew that I wasn't speeding so I thought why should I cop a fine for something I didn't do." Simotas stated. "When I got home I downloaded the data from the unit and played it back on a map. It shows my position heading speed at all times and it shows that I wasn't speeding."
The GPS tracking in Michael's car was able to show he was travelling at 59km/h and not 85km/h as claimed by the police.
Michael's lawyer, famed anti-speed camera campaigner Dennis Miralis stated that the legal victory could set a new precedent. "It will allow people in the future who've got this and who've been charged with speeding offences to really challenge what the police say the speed was."
While the type of device used by Michael can cost several thousand dollars and he spent around seven thousand dollars on legal fees, he insists it's money well spent. However, many cheap GPS receivers have data loggers built in and some PDA smartphones with GPS can record entire trips. So if motorists do have trip data loggers, they should use them whenever they drive.
Sixteen months after opening Sydney's Cross City Tunnel (CCT)is in bankruptcy. With traffic of 30,000 vehicles per day, about a third of the 90,000 projected at financing, the concessionaire Cross City Motorway (CCM) had insufficient cash to make interest payment due to creditors at the end of the year.
CCM's creditors, a syndicate of 16 Australian and international banks with loans to CCM of $560 million on December 27 2006, appointed bankruptcy and turnaround specialists KordaMentha as bankruptcy receivers and managers for the creditors.
Martin Madden of the receivers said in a statement posted on the Cross City Tunnel website: "It will be business as usual. Our job is to ensure its continued smooth operations, including its ongoing maintenance, to ensure continuity of employment and ensure the business is adequately funded in the long term."
Not wishing to be uncharitable to the employees of the CCT, CARR sincerely hopes that eventually the receivers will give up and see that they cannot trade their way out of insolvency and put pressure on the State government to take over the CCT and turn it into a freeway, the way it should have been in the first place.