Yesterday I went to the Red light/speed camera located on the corner of Rosanna Road and Darebin Street in Heidelberg. My aim was to capture the flashes from the camera when cars are caught speeding. I'd previously done this but what amazed me is the flash does not always appear on the video.
On a previous trip I used a Samsung Gear 360 2017 camera that takes video at 24fps. Even though I counted at least 6-8 cars getting flashed, not a single flash was recorded on the video. It really is amazing what your eyes can see that doesn't get caught on the video. I suspect it's because the frame rate of the video is slow compared to the rapid speed of the flash. From what I've read a flash may be around three hundredths of a second whereas at 24fps the video is recording as just four hundredths of second, so it really may just be luck to capture the flashes.
What I did this time however was to say the word flash every time I saw a flash. I was lucky enough to get quite a few flashes on one video which I took at 60fps.
Usually what I notice with red light/speed cameras is cars travelling together are usually slowed down by the lead cars. That means all of the cars in the pack don't get fined. You can't go faster than the cars ahead. Most commonly what I see is a single car that is not restricted by other cars, is the one that goes faster and gets flashed.
In this case what I recorded wasn't what I expected. A group of cars all travelling over the limit were all flashed. Four in total. We often hear about people driving at the speed of the traffic around them and if the group is all travelling faster than the speed limit, then potentially they can all get booked by a speed camera and that is what appeared to happen in this case.
It really is a good lesson. Just because others are driving at a speed and everyone is driving at the same speed, don't assume you're driving at or below the speed limit. You are the only one who can keep an eye on your speed.
The Rosanna Road and Darebin Street intersection I believe is currently the top earning speed camera in Melbourne and it makes sense. Take a section of road, add a speed camera and reduce the speed from 60 to 40 and for some time, until people get used to the change, you'll get a large number of people breaking the law. Personally I don't think this section of road should be 40. You can drive 60km/h west to east at Burgundy Street but have to do 40 km/h driving south to north on Rosanna Road. There are residential houses as there are on many main streets. There aren't really shop fronts and pedestrian traffic is relatively low because even though there's shops in the area, there's not really shopfronts on Rosanna Road. There's a primary school on the corner of Rosanna Road and Darebin Street but no exit from the school anywhere near Rosanna Road. Perhaps it could be argued the road could have the standard school zone times because of the primary school. On the opposite corner there's a childcare centre, but all children going to and from the childcare centre will be supervised by parents. Unless people object to this speed limit and get the speed limit changed, people need to observe the rules put in place by the government.
For those interested in the video I created the video with the section showing the four cars getting flashed and then slow the video down so the flashes are more easily seen.
Kelvin Eldridge
www.SpeedCameraLocations.com.au
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