WA Police Minister, Paul Papalia, has announced six new cutting edge, mobile point-to-point safety cameras will be deployed across Western Australia as part of the State Government’s ongoing efforts to reduce the number of road deaths and serious injuries.
The Minister said the cameras would be set up in pairs across a range of locations to calculate if the average speed of a driver between two points exceeds the limit. The cameras can also detect mobile phone use and seatbelt offences.
The announcement follows the Road Safety Commission’s six-month trial of safety cameras. The cameras monitored a total of 8 million vehicles in 94 locations across WA.
The trial detected:
- 42,000 drivers committing a point to point (average) speed offence;
- 265,000 drivers committing a spot speed offence;
- 11,400 drivers or front seat passengers not wearing a seatbelt or not wearing it correctly;
- 66,000 drivers using a mobile phone.
Almost 10,000 of those drivers caught using a mobile phone were repeat offenders.
No actual infringement notices were issued during the trial. If they had been, a total of 120,000 demerit points would have been issued to those repeat offending drivers.
The Road Safety Commission will now commence a competitive procurement process for the cameras, which will be funded with $11.2 million from the WA Road Trauma Trust Account.
In WA, 100% of the money generated by automated traffic enforcement fines is placed into the Road Trauma Trust Account, which is then spent on initiatives and resources to increase road safety.