I've seen the articles about a fuel truck driver who was cut off by another truck driver in NSW and was fined $1,636. The reason is they were caught by a Safety T-cam at a distance of about 15.99m from the truck in front.
At first glance it is really rough if someone cuts you off and you get a fine. However, if you inspect the video and Google maps, you have to wonder why the fine was dismissed. In fact, the headline for the article was "Common sense prevails – truck driver has $1636 fine overturned in court - Big Rigs".
https://youtube.com/watch?v=B1NLW1Awvkk&si=ehZqTBi3F37urDVe
If you check Google maps for this location (-33.54149394495143, 150.16565633916358) you'll see a few things.
The truck was exiting a 40km/h zone with an 80km/h zone coming up. Based on the video which appears to be slowed to half the speed, the truck may have been travelling around 60km/h and accelerating to return to 80km/h. The start of the video is about 245m from the intersection.
The truck in front enters the intersection when this truck was about 145m from the intersection.
According to the NSW government's site, it takes 44m at 40km/h and 90m at 60km/h for a double B truck to stop. That means there's plenty of time for this truck to stop if required.
Further, the location of the Safety T-cam where this truck was pinged 15.99m behind the truck that had cut out, is around 320m from where we can say the truck cutting out was clearly evident and had entered the main road. The intersection is about 173m from the Safety T-cam. That I would think is plenty of time for the trailing truck to have increased the gap between trucks to the required 60m.
Yes, it's a dog of an act to cut others off. It happens to all of us. But that's part of driving on the road.
For me this is a very interesting situation and shows you can be lucky by going to court.
As I said, if I'm missing something I'd like to know.
Kelvin
PS. I'm not fussed the driver of the truck had the fine overturned. In fact, it's their good luck. What interests me is to analyse the situation and learn by what happens to others on the road so I can be a better, more prepared driver. It is said around 18% of deaths on country roads involve trucks and that is disconcerting given the ratio of cars to trucks.
I find speed cameras interesting. This is the first time I've seen a fine for an average speed camera, so I thought I'd check it out.
. https://forums.whirlpool.net.au/archive/2779347
In the post by abbots the fine stated, allowed time 878s and their alleged time was 817s. The section of road was Forrest Hwy s/bound Lake Clifton. They were fined with doing 117km/h where the speed limit is 110km/h. Given the speed limit and the time allowed, this gives us the distance of 26.827 km.
You can find the Lake Clifton PTP camera located here.
https://www.speedcameralocations.com.au/wa/?lat=-32.8951349&lng=115.7137058
The end PTP camera is located in Binningup.
https://www.speedcameralocations.com.au/wa/?lat=-33.1338527&lng=115.7210756
According to Google Maps the distance between these two GPS locations is 26.9km. which shows a close correspondence.
If we then work out what speed the person would need to be going to cover 26.827km in 817s, we get 118.2km/h. It is interesting there's a variation of 1.2 km/h.
The first thing I found interesting was the time is second is what is used to determine if someone is speeding or not. That actually makes sense because the two variable figures that are easily available is the time at the first camera and the time at the second camera. The difference is the time taken to travel the known distance. From the known distance and the time taken their speed can be estimated.
It should also be kept in mind; from what I've read; the distance travelled between the two average speed cameras is the shortest distance. I imagine this to be the line that cuts across lanes on curved sections of the road. If people speed and stay roughly in the same lane and not cut across lanes to use the shortest distance, they're in fact being a slight allowance because the distance is long, so they would take longer to do the distance.
The second thing is if someone is caught driving at 117 km/h, if they needed to slow down for other cars, then their peak speed is going to be quite a bit higher.
When using cameras the government usually provides an allowance, first for error in their equipment and second an unstated tolerance. The tolerance for the equipment is usually 2 o3 km/h or above 100 km/h 2 or 3%. The unstated tolerance might be closer to 6 km/h.
What we can see here is the person was booked for doing 117 km/h on a 110 km/h road so we now know the unstated tolerance is less than 7 km/h. Anyone who still thinks there's a 10% tolerance is probably in for some financial pain.
As more people share their speeding fine stories. the unstated tolerance will become more obvious. Each person has their own driving preference. I use my GPS to let me know the speed and usually drive close to that speed, but ultimately, it is how comfortable I feel the car is for the conditions. Others drive using the speedometer and others tend to drive a little over the speed limit believing they won't get fined, whilst others simply don't seem to care, or don't realise they're speeding. Fines are a way for the government to encourage people to comply.
Fixed and portable average speed cameras usage is growing across Australia so information like this person's fine is good information to know. Hopefully you've found it interesting.
Kelvin
I find the information published on civic compliance, or in particular not compliance, to be particularly interesting. So that I am able find the information again where I wish to refer to the information I write short articles here and provided a link.
In this case the publication was about the Western Australia mobile safety camera trials. This differs from the east in that the mobile safety cameras used in Western Australia were mobile trailers that included speeding, average speeding, mobile phone and seat belt usage across a range of areas in WA. That gives a good cross section of usage and non-compliance statistics.
The summary of results link provides some very interesting results.
There were 384,400 non-compliance incidents out of 8 million vehicles detected, which is around 4.8% of people not complying with the law. That's a bit sad as it tells us that when we're out driving, one in twenty drivers are doing something they shouldn't being doing. The good thing is that 95% or drivers are doing the right thing, or at least the things the government has measured. Dangerous activities such as aggressive driving, dangerous overtaking, tailgating, cutting in too early, cutting out too late, and many other such deliberate or inadvertent activities, shows us there's a level of risk when we drive on the roads that really isn't acceptable but is often impossible to avoid.
Hopefully others will find the results as interesting as I jave.
Kelvin
Today I read this article about Australians dobbing in their fellow Australians for breaking the road rules and using dashcam footage and reporting the footage to police.
Aussie road users hit with more fines as drivers use dash cam to dob others in (yahoo.com)
I find this quite perplexing as those dobbing in others are likely to also be breaking the road rules quite a bit of the time whether they realise it or not. The dobbers should realise that if the matter goes to court, they may be required to give evidence, and their personal details could become available.
Common ways I see people every day breaking the road rules are: crossing single white lines, not stopping at a stop sign (rolling through it is not stopping), not stopping on amber when they could, driving over the white stop line, exceeding the speed limit whilst overtaking, etc., etc. We all see drivers every time we go out driving who break the road rules.
Don't get me wrong. I would dob in a driver if that driver caused harm to another person or their property. But it is easy to ramp people up, to get them angry at other drivers, to get them to dob in others. We need to remain tolerant and be considerate to others on the road. To have patience. Yes, others will drive in a manner that you're not happy with (those who cut in early when changing lanes, those who speed past at a zip merge making it dangerous), but you can only control what you do.
If everyone dobbed in everyone else who did something wrong on the road, it's only a matter of time before you get dobbed in. I'm thankful to those who have tolerated me when I've made mistakes.
For those interest Yahoo published the survey result and here's what it showed when I did the survey. Credit to Yahoo for the graphic.
It is interesting to see around a fifth of people answering the survey have dobbed in someone else. That's interesting and good to know about our fellow Australians.
www.SpeedCameraLocations.com.au
I often thought it was only a matter of time before the cameras used to monitor heaving vehicles would start to be used as point-to-point cameras to monitor speeding cars. The cynic would say it's a quick, cheap and easy way to increase fines and revenue for the state governments. The less cynically would say the more people that get fined the more people are likely to comply with the speed limits, thus increasing road safety.
The following article appeared on the News.com.au site today.
Across NSW there's quite a large number of routes where there's point-to-point cameras that by current legislation can only be used to monitor heavy vehicle traffic. It makes sense to extend this network of cameras to cover light vehicles. The hardware is already in place and only software needs to be changed, albeit at what would be a sizeable software contract.
The word trial is used and I have to say this misleads me. I think of a trial as meaning to test something out and if it doesn't achieve the results, to then cease the trail. I've come to understand that a trial when used by the government is more likely to mean, a testing phase followed by going live.
For example, if we use the stats provided in the article, we can instantly see the effect on the road toll will hardly be noticeable. Over a four-year period there were six deaths and 33 injuries on the two lengths of road nominated for the trial. Speed is considered a factor in 44% of road fatalities. That means each year, based on these figures we'd expect to see the road toll reduced by 6 deaths /4 year * 44% which is 0.66 of a person. We should keep in mind the injuries are also important and would equate to 3-4 per year. This is not a significant outcome in terms of road safety. In terms of revenue, that will be significant.
As this change permeates across Australia, as the heavy vehicle monitoring is Australia wide, I'll update the Speed Camera Locations site to also include the heavy vehicle point-to-point cameras as speed cameras.
When driving it is a good idea to use an app such as Waze (or my own Speed Limit Alerts web app) to help comply with the speed limit. It's easy to make a mistake, drive with the flow of the traffic, and get a fine for doing so. As cars are updated these features will be built into the cars, but for now, there's a few software tools that can help.
I often read people quoting there's a 10% tolerance before you'll get fined for speeding. This is a myth. The following is for the tolerance in fixed and mobile speed cameras which can be found in the following regulations document. The information here is for Victorians, but hopefully it also relates to the situation in other states.
https://content.legislation.vic.gov.au/sites/default/files/2023-06/19-88sra016-authorised.pdf
Division 3—Fixed digital road safety cameras
35 Testing of fixed digital RSC
(b) is satisfied that the speed calculation unit is
properly calibrated so that it indicates speed
readings within a limit of error not greater
than or less than 2 kilometres per hour or
2 per cent (whichever is greater) of the true
speeds.
Division 4—Mobile digital road safety cameras
38 Testing of mobile digital RSC
(b) is satisfied that the speed calculation unit is
properly calibrated so that it indicates speed
readings within a limit of error not greater
than or less than 3 kilometres per hour or
3 per cent (whichever is greater) of the true
speeds.
Division 5—Speed detectors
42 Testing of speed detectors
(b) is satisfied that the device is properly
calibrated so that it indicates the speed
readings within a limit of error not greater or
less than 2 km per hour of the true speeds.
We need to keep in mind, this is the tolerance the government allows in their own equipment. If the government's equipment is accurate, then for a fixed camera that means we'd get a tolerance of 2 km/h for roads with a speed limit up to 100km/h, and 2% for roads above 100km/h.
However, if their equipment is not accurate, then their equipment could record you as going up to 2km/h (or 2% for roads above 100km/h) faster than you're actually going or record you as going slower than you're actually going.
What's important to note is the legislation is for their equipment, not your equipment or the speed you're going.
For example, let's say the speed limit is 60km/h and you're travelling at 60km/h, but their equipment can read you as going anywhere between 58km/h to 62km/h. Let's say you were actually doing 61km/h. The detected speed could be 63km/h and your alleged speed would then be 61km/h. In theory you could get fined for driving at 61km/h. I've read if you took this to court you could lose. Whilst at this stage I have no evidence for Victoria, I'd suspect the government would not take you to court for such a low infraction. It doesn't look good for the government and it could cause the community to lose faith in the system. Both outcomes the government wouldn't want.
In terms of evidence for an additional tolerance however, we can see for South Australia, from the data they release for their SAPOL Expiations (think fines), for fixed and mobile speed cameras for a 60km/h speed zone, the alleged speed starts at 68km/h for fines. This indicates the South Australian government does have an additional tolerance and I suspect this would be true of other states as well. Although my instinct is that some states will have a tighter tolerance than SA. However, for speeding fines other than fixed or mobile speed cameras, (categorised as "other", which I suspect would be by police) the data does show the alleged speed can be as low as 64km/h.
Kelvin
I recently read people in Queensland were now getting fined when speeding very close to the speed signs when the speed limit zone changes. This concerned me as it appeared to be an easy way to increase revenue. Yes, people shouldn't speed. Being a good driver also means obeying the road laws. None of us obey the letter of the law, all the time. I decided to do some research.
After finding a few articles with photos showing the same location, things didn't make sense to me. The road markings did not match where the speed signs were located. The following is the article on Yahoo News, but I think I also saw headline from the Courier Mail.
Aussie driver caught twice by 'sneaky' placement of speed camera on highway (yahoo.com)
It turns out the driver was mistaken (along with many others), who believed the sign in their picture was a speed limit sign. It isn't a speed limit sign. It is an informational sign for a camping area and the road name.
The following video is from my travels and starts just before the sign shown in the speeding fines and then continues on to the speed limit change, about 220m further on.
Driving Queensland, Agnes Water to Gladstone - Tour #3 - YouTube
People are speeding up before reaching the sign and from the other direction, not slowing down to the speed limit as they reach the sign. This is normal driving behaviour, but it isn't legal behaviour. You have to at or below the signed speed limit for the section of road you are travelling on. If you're approaching a 60km/h sign from a faster section of road, you need to be at or below 60km/h when you reach the sign. If you're approaching a 100km/h sign from a lower speed limit zone, you can't speed up before you reach the speed limit sign. Not what we all do, but something we should be doing.
So in this case the media reports are based on incorrect information, and unfortunately, lack of fact checking.
Today I noticed an article about the crash involving Dan Andrews' wife Catherine Andrews and a 15 year old cyclist that occurred in 2013.
I decided to check out the location. You can find the location by copying and pasting the following coordinates or address into Google Maps.
-38.37233221847381, 144.77570100737393
(Melbourne Road and Ridley Street, Blairgowrie)
The accident occurred at 1:10pm on the 7th of January 2013. In 2013 Melbourne Road had a speed limit of 70km/h, which is also the current speed limit. Ridley Street had/has a speed limit of 50km/h.
All I can really say is it must have been gut wrenching for all parties involved. I was once pulling out of a drive very, very slowly where the hedge obscured my view and out of the corner of my eye I noticed something and immediately hit the brakes. It was a small child on a bike who had got ahead of the mother. The bike ended up on it's side and just near or possibly under the wheel of my car (I can't quite recall). No one was hurt, the bike was not damaged, but I was shaken and lived with the memory for some time. There's no winners in this situation.
I don't like checking out accident information as it's often horrible. I do like to understand what may have happened in broad terms so if there's something to learn, I can learn and pass the information on to family and friends.
Using Google Streetview to check out the location you'll see there's no warning to cars that a bike track exists. Nothing. Visibility is very limited. The path is around 17 metres from the main road. There's perhaps 2-3 metres visibility of anyone on the path. A bike travelling at 20km/h would give a driver 0.36-0.72 seconds to respond and hit the brakes. On roads for traffic lights, response time is assumed to be around 1 second. In other words, there may be insufficient time for a driver to respond and apply their brakes irrespective of their speed.
The bike path being 17 metres from the main road is around a house block in from the road. Drivers expect paths to be near roads, not a house block in. But it is a warning when in these areas look out for signs of bike paths and drive appropriately. Cyclists also need to consider they may not be seen. Perhaps some signage or line markings indicating cycling crossing point may be worth considering.
I hope this information may help others in some way. It has certainly taught me to be more alert for bike trails and paths.
Kelvin
Two changes today.
Today I was able to find the speed camera located on the Great Northern Highway, Bullsbrook, WA. The location of the camera has now been added to the map. This camera's location has eluded me for some time and was the last camera in WA where the location wasn't known.
NSW have issued a press release for a new red light speed camera in Bankstown NSW at the intersection of Rickard Road and Lady Cutler Avenue. As per new cameras I don't know which part of the intersection is located or the direction of the camera so the middle of the intersection is used until additional information on the location is found.
Kelvin Eldridge
www.SpeedCameraLocations.com.au
I found Ben O'Shea's article in Perth Now interesting as Ben saw a mobile speed camera set up about 50m before the speed limit sign on a Mitchell Freeway onramp. Unfortunately I don't know which onramp which would have been good to know.
I was under the understanding the guidelines in Victoria stated mobile speed cameras shouldn't be set up within 200m of a change of speed limit sign and thought the same may apply across Australia.
However there's two things to note here. First, there's the law and there's guidelines. If I'm correct, basically the law states we can't exceed the speed limit and that's all we can rely on if we went to court. You're at the mercy of the court and I wouldn't be too confident. I did have a parking fine dismissed before getting to court for the third time because the distance between signs didn't meet the Australian Standard, but that's only because the Whitehorse Council withdrew the fine (after nearly two years).
When we see a speed sign ahead we all speed up. Strictly speaking we'll often be breaking the law and if you do that you can expect to get fined. It's weird how you can't be at the speed limit when you're speeding up approaching the sign but you have to be at the speed limit when slowing down approaching a sign. Although what is reasonable to some would be taken advantage of by others. Some people would speed up just as they approach the sign and others would speed up hundreds of metres before the sign.
More and more the government is tightening down and things we used to do (or still do now) can potentially end up getting us a fine. Remember the good old days when you'd use the momentum of the hill going down to help you go up. Environmentally friendly but now we have to brake continuously to make sure we don't exceed the speed limit and accelerate as the hill rises again, only to have slowed even further due to gravity and friction before the acceleration kicks in. It really is all very petty but that's the way it is.
You know the law and whilst you may not be happy with some of the laws, stick to the laws and stop donating to the government's coffers. Ultimately it's your choice.
Kelvin Eldridge
www.SpeedCameraLocations.com.au
I thought it would be a good a good idea to compile the top 10 Victorian red light speed camera locations for 2020-2021. This is the most recent financial year's data provided by the Victorian government.
Why a top 10 compilation?
The top 10 red light speed camera locations catch a lot of people out. With 170,225 fines out of 1,216,979 these cameras represent around 14% or roughly one in six fines. Lots of people make the same mistake and if you don't know the area, you may make the same mistake too.
Half of the locations are 40 km/h speed zones for part of the day. People often don't expect 40km/h zones near schools to operate extended hours or even on weekends, so it's easy to make an error in judgement. Rosanna Road has a number of relatively recently installed cameras and whilst people who drive that way regularly, got a period of warning, if you don't regularly drive along Rosanna Road you may not be expecting the speed change. I know I've driven through areas and wondered when the speed limit changed. In fact I was completely unaware for quite a long time the entire central city area had become 40km/h. If you're driving according to the speeds you remember (as many of us do) and don't pay attention to the speed signs (called being change-unaware and it's very common) you will pay the price.
North Road is another major road where you really can't see there's a school coming up.
Warrigal Road and Batesford Road has extended 40km/h times Monday to Saturday (yet not Sunday) and up to 8pm at night. Personally I think the government should use some of the tens of millions of dollars raised in fines to improve the pedestrian infrastructure (car/pedestrian separation) to make this area better for drivers and pedestrians. There's a useless pedestrian overpass to the north of the train line (goes way to far east making it inconvenient) and a redundant pedestrian crossing to the south of the train line. Build a shorter/better pedestrian overpass to the south of the train line, get rid of the pedestrian crossing and provide barriers to stop pedestrians crossing at any other point. Perhaps even remove the car parking on Warrigal Road and provide better parking at the rear as most of the shops now are restaurants.
The Melbourne Airport red light speed camera is an interesting one. People come off a higher speed freeway and perhaps that affects their perception of speed. I know that's happened to me and resulted in a speed fine. Also there's a very high level of traffic, more cars generally means more fines.
Fitzroy Street St Kilda is a nice big open road and it makes little sense for the lower speed limit quite a distance from pedestrian activity. Unfortunately, Victoria mainly has speed cameras at intersections so there's quite a distance where the speed limit doesn't make sense.
The Western Ring Road west of Sydney Road is bound to catch out many people due to the variable speed signs. A research article I read recently showed 58.3% of people who drive a road regularly where the speed signs are often the same, won't see one or more variable speed signs have changed. It would be interesting to see what percentage of people are caught out by variable speed sign changes. I can't help wonder perhaps if variable speed signs at the default speed of the freeway (in this case 100km/h) then when the speed is changed the annulus should always be flashing. Flashing does alert people to a change.
Geelong Road, Footscray goes from 80 km/h to 60km/h, 40km/h school zone then back up to 60km/h with a huge three lane highway so easy for people to creep up in speed with speed perception issues after a long drive along a major road.
Eastlink, Rowville is interesting as it is the only speed camera on Eastlink in the top 10. My guess is the long downward slope will catch many people out as cars speed up when there's a downward slope if people aren't proactive. Of course there's always going to be those travelling in the right lane who speed past the rest of the traffic as well. The right lane on major freeways nearly always catches more people than the other lanes.
Hopefully sharing these thoughts and the locations of the top 10 red light speed camera locations help people to adjust their driving for the benefit of everyone including their hip pocket.
Kelvin Eldridge
www.SpeedCameraLocations.com.au
A short while ago I read about a young man from Sydney, Beau Jackson, who regularly warns drivers of a mobile speed camera by displaying a sign before the mobile speed camera.
I couldn't help think at the time of reading the article that one of the lessons I've learnt in life is when you attack the system, the system will attack you back. It's a sad lesson as it's really a way to keep people in line and we shouldn't have to live in such a system. Perhaps it's just human nature. If someone attacks you would you attack them back? Probably. So why do we think the system should be any better than us since we are the system.
Now just a few weeks later we've found the "Aussie hero" has been hit with a fine for littering from the EPA.
Speed camera hero fined for bizarre reason | news.com.au — Australia’s leading news site
The EPA wouldn't have issued such a notice without some cause. It may be as simple as someone going past, not agreeing with what Beau Jackson is doing, saw the sign and some drink cans on the ground whilst he was there and reported him for littering. Even though Beau could have cleaned up everything from the site when he left, a report could have been made. It may even be there's a regulation we wouldn't normally know about that could be used. For example is having a sign on a vehicle illegal in some way? Most people just wouldn't know.
The problem is Beau Jackson either pays the fine or fights it potentially in court. Having recently fought a parking ticket (signs were not seen as they exceeded the Australian standard for distance between signs) and had the parking ticket withdrawn, this was nearly a two year saga that created undue stress. The government losses nothing when they raise an infringement against you but you can lose a lot of sleep, get stressed and potentially be faced with a considerable increase in penalty if you're ruled against.
Sometimes I think the best thing Beau Jackson could do is provide a link for donations to pay the fine. Pay the fine from donations and move on. This isn't the right thing to do but sometimes it can be the prudent thing to do. As a council officer said to me when I was much younger when I questioned my fine, "you can take the fine to court and lose a day of work if you want". My car had broken down and I pushed it into the gutter by myself in front of my house, but that meant it was parked facing the wrong way so I was fined for parking on the wrong side of the road. I paid the fine. I've now learnt if you fight a fine it's not just one day. The recent fine was multiple visits to the council, multiple visits to the site gathering evidence, online hearing, in person hearing, telephone meeting where fine was dismissed, all over nearly a two year period. So it isn't just one day in court.
I wish Beau Jackson all the best and would be more than happy to chip in a 20 to help with the fine. We really need people who stand up for what they believe. We don't need to destroy the spirit of the young.
For those who think people shouldn't speed (and they shouldn't), I'm finding through my research, that a driver driving normally within the speed limit, when there's a small two degree decline in the road after a rise in the road can easily exceed the speed limit for a short period of time before readjusting their speed. Mobile speed cameras placed near or after a steeper decline is common and picks up people who are making a common mistake but often would not be deliberately speeding. Most of us would make the same mistake but we are lucky there's no speed camera when we do.
Kelvin Eldridge
www.SpeedCameraLocations.com.au
The Burnley tunnel has two speed cameras, one located approximately 430m from the entrance and the other located approximately 2,140m from the entrance. As I investigate speed cameras I often find interesting information I'd not considered.
I found this article which felt like there were a lot of frustrated drivers.
Why the hell do people go so slow in the Burnley tunnel?! : melbourne (reddit.com)
However, unexpectedly I found this article which goes a long way to explaining the issue.
Transurban's data efforts drive changes in motorist behaviour - News - IoT Hub
It appears people have no issue going down the hill at the speed limit but once the grade starts to go up people don't increase their speed quickly enough and that causes traffic to slow down behind them.
You can see two things are in play. The first is the slope of the road which initially goes down and then goes up. The second is people trying to keep within the speed limit because there's two speed cameras and very hefty fines waiting for those who infringe.
The slope of the road. If you check my driving speed along Foote Street/Reynolds Road you'll see that even though the speed limit is 70km/h and I try to drive near the speed limit, in fact as I go down the hills I have to brake and then accelerate to go back up the next hill and the driving speed can easily drop by around 10km/h.
Speed cameras. I don't know about others, but normally I drive with my speedometer showing that I'm driving near the posted speed limit. Often the needle is slightly below. That means I'm really driving about 2 km/h below the speed limit. But where there's a speed camera I slow down even further as I have no trust in the government's facilities. So perhaps I'll be driving now at 4km/h below the speed limit according to my speedometer. But legally all speedometers show a speed that is higher than my actual speed. My speedometer is out by around 4km/h. So when I drive where there's a speed camera I'll be driving around 8km/h below the speed limit.
When you add the upward gradient change at the bottom of the Burnley tunnel plus my desire to drive and not get booked, I'd slow down to possibly 18km/h below the speed limit and whilst some of this is by conscious choice, most of it isn't. That means every car behind me would need to slow down so they don't run up the back of my car and that could easily cause the speed to drop a little further.
As you can see, with a posted speed limit of 80km/h, this can easily result in people needing to slow down to around 60km/h to match the speed of the traffic.
So what people are getting frustrated about and calling Australians bad drivers, is really a lack of knowledge on their part as to how the car operates and how others drive. I really wish my car speedometer showed the exact speed and then I'd drive perhaps 2km/h below the speed limit for caution around speed cameras. The government has legislated so that doesn't happen so that's their fault. The angle of the slope in the Burnley tunnel is by design so again the government's fault. A much smoother curve could assist in smoothing out people's speed.
As to the paranoia with speed cameras that's because the government has legislated speed cameras can be out by up to 2 or 3 km/h (2 km/h is used in the Burnley Tunnel) for inaccuracy of their equipment. Now unfortunately if feels like the government gives themselves an error for margin but not us. Actually the government does give a margin for error but they do not publish that margin as they don't wish for that to become the default speed limit people start using.
As for relying on your cruise control to maintain the speed limit, if you haven't tested your cruise control you should think twice. My cruise control (an older Toyota Avensis) does not slow me down, but only keeps me at the speed. Thus when going down hill my car will exceed the speed limit. A Mitsubishi I tested keeps the car at the speed limit and slows down going down a hill, but when reaching the bottom of the slope can lose 15km/h as it adjusts to go up the next slope as in the Burnley Tunnel. Until I tested a number of cruise controls I would have thought cruise controls all kept you at the set speed and that's not been the case in my testing.
So to answer the question "why do people go so slow through the Burnley Tunnel" is not because they're not bad drivers. They're actually driving as people would expect them to. Slightly lower than the speed limit to ensure they look after their own financial interests, braking when they should on the downward slope to ensure they don't break the law and accelerating when the road starts to go up but unfortunately the upward slope slows the car before the person's acceleration returns the car to the desired speed. All cars following need to match (or usually go slightly slower) to ensure they keep a safe distance. There is nothing untoward going on. People aren't bad drivers. It's just the way cars and people work.
Thanks to a couple of people posting comments on my Speed Camera Locations site I became aware that people were getting speeding fines on the Western Ring Road near Sydney Road they didn't expect. A lot of people would say they should just obey the speed limit, but there's far too many people getting fined at that location for it to simply being people deliberately speeding. If you read the online stories from many people they didn't think they were speeding and often haven't receive a speeding fine in years.
Could it be they are "change-unaware".
I stumbled across a fascinating research paper on variable speed limit signage which showed 58.3% of people who participated in the research were change-unaware. That is, when people travel a regular route where the variable speed limit signs showed 80 km/h and then some signs were changed to 100 km/h, some 58.3% of the participants failed to notice the speed limit change.
I found the research quite fascinating as I found many things mentioned I've found in my own experience.
For example:
1. How often have you travelled your regular route home only to think did you notice things such as the traffic lights. You must have otherwise you'd probably have an accident. But after a while many of your driving decisions are less conscious and more sub-conscious.
2. Where there's two speed signs indicating a lower speed limit people can miss the first sign and notice the second. I've done that when I was testing the Amigo speed app.
3. Often I don't know what speed I should be driving even though I obey all speed signs. You just go into semi-autonomous. You are alert and aware so there's no danger, it's just some tasks are actioned (like keeping to the speed limit) but not really remembered, so I have to focus and be conscious of the next speed limit sign.
4. I have some reservation on their methodology because if a person was driving in the simulator they'd keep the car ahead 3 seconds ahead. That may have biased the results by leading people to go faster than they would in real life. We often use the clues of others around us as one source of input. Of course that can lead to people getting fined because they simply drive with the traffic flow.
5. It appears in the article that as people become more familiar with a road they tend to increase their average speed, and unfortunately that meant a lot of people speeding. It could be in the simulator there's no consequences so driving faster once familiar with the route would be people's normal behaviour.
6. In the study, people who were change-unaware appear to drive at higher speeds, perhaps less compliant. Although even those who were aware of the speed limit change often sped, but not to the same level.
7. Interestingly, for the speed-aware people they increased their speed but did not exceed the speed limit as they did for earlier drives. So they were more compliant when there was a change in the situation.
Overall I thought this was very interesting research.
But there were a few things I wanted to check.
When did the variable speed limit signs become automated?
Has the variable speed limit signs changed the level of fines at the speed cameras before Sydney Road on the Ring Road?
For question 1, it appears the variable speed limit signs became fully automated in 2016. I can image the software has evolved since then so it may be possible the changing of the speed limits on sign could impact drivers.
For question 2, my Speed Camera Locations site shows the number of fines for the 2017/2018 year and the speed camera in question was not in the top 10 by number of fines with camera 4 having 11,634 fines. The latest top 10 from an article on the 9 News site shows for 2020/2021 the speed camera is now at number 6 in terms of number of fines, but interestingly the number of fines have come down to 9,390.
This is not what I expected. The number of fines has reduced from three years prior. However looking at a number of other sites that were in the top 10 previously, most have reduced the number of fines. In addition more low speed 40 km/h sites (Rosanna Road/3 and Terminal Ave back online) have come into the top 10 pushing others from three years prior out of the top 10. Overall, if I were to guess, I'd suggest drop in fines is on trend so the variable speed signs aren't capturing more than previously. So it really does appear people are making the same mistakes they've done for the last three years.
Kelvin Eldridge
www.SpeedCameraLocations.com.au
