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.
In this video I share my analytics and plug the values into the Making Money On YouTube web app I created which lets me know how long it will be until I get monetised and a share in the advertising revenue.
On a recent driving holiday I had the opportunity to see the new mobile phone and seat belt detection cameras. As people may not have seen these cameras as well, I thought it would be good to share what they looked like.
The freeRadio web app was created as part of an evolving process. I create videos for YouTube which are driving videos, however I don't include sound, just the visual component. Why? Generally because of privacy of others in the car.
I also don't add music to the videos for a couple of reasons. If I add music before uploading YouTube often marks the music as a copyright strike even though I've used Microsoft's provided music. I also find I don't like the music choice of others so I'm sure others may not like my choice, but more importantly it is very time consuming and if I had to spend that time I couldn't justify making the videos. The return simply isn't there.
My original thought was it was easy for people to put on their favourite music as they watched my videos.
Over time however I found with websites I was developing I could include YouTube videos in my own web pages for my own sites such as www.SpeedCameraLocations.com.au. As my knowledge evolved I worked out I could zoom in on YouTube videos which isn't a feature provided by YouTube and sometimes that was important to me. Next I worked out I could add streaming radio to my web pages. I now had all the techniques I needed and created the freeRadio site www.freeRadio.com.au so people could play radio streams as they watched my videos or videos from others. I then added the option to freeRadio so people can enter the YouTube video's unique identifier to provide zooming and radio streaming in the background all within the one web page.
If you'd like to play a radio stream in the background of a YouTube video then give freeRadio a try.
I create videos of my drives and upload them to YouTube. I produce the videos without sound to ensure I don't breach copyright and respect the privacy of passengers in the car. My aim was for people to play their own radio or music in the background whilst watching the videos.
I could add music to my videos whilst creating them but unfortunately I never know if YouTube are going to mark the music copyright, which they have in the past, even though the music is supposedly copyright free. I could also add free music to the video using the YouTube editor but frankly it's hard to go through all the music to find something I like, let alone what other people will like. Frankly I can't stand the music many people add to their videos on YouTube.
I decided perhaps a good way around this problem was to create my own freeRadio web app. On a desktop computer if freeRadio is opened in one tab and YouTube in another freeRadio will keep playing. Whilst this is possible on Apple iPads, it's too clumsy and on Apple iPhone the YouTube app cuts off the freeRadio sound. That's OK because most people have an older phone they can connect to their network or hotspot and use that phone as a radio.
I've put in a selection of internet radio streams for people to choose from. If you want nothing more than to listen to radio whilst travelling on the train, bus, or even at home or work, freeRadio can be used for that too.
On YouTube a number of people uploaded their actual driving test showing the route they took and you're able to hear the instructions they were given by the tester. This is great information for someone about to take their practical driving test. Whilst you may get another route and examiner, at least you can still see what the general process is and that's a great help in calming the nerves.
When watching the videos I thought one things was missing. I really couldn't tell where the person drove. I decided to create a map of the route taken and also link the map back to the video. Now people could easily see the route and also check out particular parts of the route very easily. You can find Practical Driving Test at https://www.PracticalDrivingTest.com.au.
Then I thought if you want to do the actual route yourself for practise, you really need to hear the instructions as the person did as they drove. I decided to add an Audio Guide to Practical Driving Test.
To see and hear the Audio Guide for Practical Driving Test in action I've created the following video which is available on YouTube. In the video I drove the same route taken by a person taking their Practical Driving Test at VicRoads Ringwood. VicRoads Ringwood has now closed but following the audio guide is still excellent practise.
I hope others find the maps and audio guide interesting and useful.
Recently Alphington Grammar School was in the news because people have petitioned for the gates to be left open since Alphington Grammar School has built access over Old Heidelberg Road. I wondering if Alphington Grammar School was closed off from the Darebin Creek Trail and it certainly looks like it is with quite a high fence.
I don't know about you, but I was very nervous for my practical driving test many years ago. In hindsight, when the driving instructor was telling me where I was driving was possibly part of the actual practical driving test route, I really had no idea what he meant. With dashcams it's now possible for drivers and instructors to share actual video footage of the practical driving test and I feel, those videos can take away some of the mystery of the practical driving test.
In addition I find many older people like myself don't realise the road rules have evolved over the years and watching people take their practical driving test can often show things we don't know or could do better. For example, I find older people (including myself) think when you turn from one road (say from single lane or slip lane) into a road with multiple lanes we have to stick to the left lane and then move across to the right lane when it's safe to do so. This often means the car behind you cuts you off trying to go around you. Knowing that I can go into either lane makes for safer driving for me and knowing the rules takes some of the stress out of driving. Even for more experienced drivers checking out practical driving test videos can teach them a thing or two.
The practical driving test videos can all be found on YouTube but the problem I've found is to find them. There's a lot of videos and many are just people trying to get you to watch their video. The aim of the Practical Driving Test site is to link directly to real people doing the actual practical driving test. This is good for the creator of the video too as they get all the credit for the video including any potential revenue or subscribers the video may generate.
The one thing I found from watching the videos on YouTube is I wanted to be able to see the actual route taken for the practical driving test. Just driving along turning right and left doesn't really give me the context of where the drive was located or where the person drove. For that reason I've created a map of each drive which shows the route and the route is synchronised with the video. Using the map it's possible to click on a location on the map and start watching the practical driving test video from that point in the video.
I hope others find watching practical driving test videos as interesting as I do.
There is no doubt to me that some roundabouts are poorly placed. To me if the traffic level is appropriate a roundabout can aid the flow of the traffic, but once the traffic level gets too great, you get people racing to get through that take risks, not giving way when they should.
The above VicRoads video I thought was quite reasonable, however there's one thing that's not made clear, or the cars are acting contrary to what they're advising.
The statement is, "Unless you're travelling straight through you should indicate left when you leave the roundabout to let others know what you're doing - just like you would when you left turn on any road".
In the video you'll see cars travelling straight through in all directions and some indicate and some don't.
What's also weird is three of the four entry points into the roundabout have arrows, but the left to right entry point has no arrows. Having no arrows is a disaster waiting to happen as the car in left hand lane could turn right and the car in the right hand lane could go straight ahead.
Back to the main point in the video. It isn't explained why some cars going straight ahead are indicating left to exit the roundabout yet we're told "unless you're travelling straight through you should indicate left" which implies if you are travelling straight ahead you don't need to indicate.
According to the following link which I believe is for Victoria's road rules, people should indicate if it's practical, but what one person considers practical another may not.
Reviewing the above video we see the following cars going straight through the intersection.
0:29 Yellow truck, indicates, going left to right
0:32 Yellow motorbike, indicates, going right to left
0:38 Red truck, doesn't indicate, going top to bottom
0:42 Green car, indicates, going left to right, yellow car, doesn't indicate, going right to left
0:49 Green car, indicates, going left to right
0:56 Red car, doesn't indicate, going right to left
0:59 Blue car, doesn't indicate, going bottom to top, green car, indicates going left to right
The only pattern I can see if if the car is entering the roundabout and there's no arrows indicating direction, then the if the car is going straight ahead, the car indicates left to exit. For cars going straight across if there's arrows they may or may not indicate. It's just a pattern. It doesn't mean it's right.
In general I feel I indicate correctly when exiting a roundabout, but trying to indicate left to exist when going straight across is difficult as you can't indicate too early otherwise cars on your left waiting to enter the roundabout may think you're turning left at the first exit. So by the time you reach the cars waiting on the left and then indicate to exit left when going straight ahead you're giving almost no advance warning to anyone. Just perhaps a single cycle of the indicator which could be easy to miss. Having said that, I still attempt to indicate to exit if possible.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
In this latest change to the COVID testing regime it really makes me grimace. Now international travellers who could possibly bring in the latest COVID variants no longer need to be tested before heading off to Australia. It makes me shudder.
Yes, these people need to prove they're double vaccinated, but being vaccinated (even with four doses) does not stop you getting COVID or reduce the peak infection. Being vaccinated just helps the body to respond and shorten the period of infection.
If you were booked for an international trip and someone around you had COVID would that stop you from travelling? Most likely not.
Surely a RAT test could be completed whilst people wait. Anyone who travels knows there's a lot of waiting time involved.
To make things even more confusing this is a Federal government change, but each states still have it's own rules, whatever they may be.
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.
I read a lot of information pushed by the government which supports their agenda of reducing speed limits to 40km/h. Some of it I simply don't believe. When that happens I seek out other research and confirm or refute what the government is saying.
For example the latest article I read was the following from Transport NSW.
Basically at 40 km/h there's a 40% risk of death and at 50 km/h there's a risk of death of 90%. This information is to justify the reduction of speed limits to 40 km/h from 50 km/h.
However a quick search on the internet locates the following from America.
Whilst the figures are in mph, if we convert the speeds to km/h we get 10% at 37 km/h, 25% at 51 km/h, 50% at 67 km/h, 75% at 80 km/h and 90% at 90 km/h.
The real difference reducing the speed limit is not as significant as we're led to believe and if the article above is correct, more like a 10-15% increase in the risk of death if the speed limit is 40 or 50 km/h respectively.
Another figure you'll often hear is that doubling the speed increases the risk by a the square or four in this case. When you hear that figure take it with a grain of salt. The reason is they're mixing up the kinetic energy which does increase by the square of the speed, but research generally shows (from what I've read), it's more of a linear relationship.
