Road Safety Minister Liza Harvey made the revelation at the unveiling of WA’s fifth fixed speed camera site, located between Farrington Road and South Street on the Kwinana Freeway northbound.
Ms Harvey said the five camera sites, in Stirling, Innaloo, Roe Highway and now two on the Kwinana Freeway, would not operate simultaneously because the number of infringements needing to be processed ‘creates a problem’.
‘It does create a large volume of infringements that need to be processed which sort of creates a problem, but we also want to give drivers a chance of remaining compliant,’ she said.
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READ NOW‘We find we get a good effect if we rotate cameras around because drivers never know when the camera is operating and when it isn’t and we tend to get a suppression effect on driver behaviour at these sites.’
When questioned about why there were not more people put on to process the infringements, Ms Harvey said the current method was getting the desired results.
Even so, she did not rule out purchasing further cameras in the future.
‘From time to time we’ll go to Cabinet to increase the number of cameras and I certainly expect to be bringing something like that forth within the next 12 months or so,’ she said.
The latest site, unveiled on Sunday, is the only one operating with dual remote cameras capable of capturing both the front and back of speeding vehicles.
With six fatal and 25 serious crashes along the stretch since 1995, plus about 18 per cent of drivers found to be exceeding the speed limit during recent speed camera deployments, she said something had to be done.
‘Fixed camera deployment to this site is to have an impact on driving behaviour, get people to slow down and obey the rules and ensure the roads are safe.’