Skip to main content

New addition to Tasmania's road safety strategy

In a bid to reduce road casualties, the Tasmanian Government is installing eight new fixed speed camera sites across the State, adding an extra dimension to its key road safety focus on safer speeds. Police Minister Rene Hidding said the new camera system, which has been approved in consultation with the Road Safety Advisory Council, will complement the existing sites on the Tasman Bridge. The project will be implemented by Tasmania Police and will be funded with US$382,000 from the Road Safety Levy.
January 9, 2015 Read time: 2 mins
In a bid to reduce road casualties, the Tasmanian Government is installing eight new fixed speed camera sites across the State, adding an extra dimension to its key road safety focus on safer speeds.

Police Minister Rene Hidding said the new camera system, which has been approved in consultation with the Road Safety Advisory Council, will complement the existing sites on the Tasman Bridge. The project will be implemented by Tasmania Police and will be funded with US$382,000 from the Road Safety Levy.

Site locations will be selected through the combined analysis of crash data, where exceeding the speed limit was identified as a cause, as well as historical speed camera deployment data.

Two will be located in the north-west, two in the north and four in the state's south. Motorists will be advised of the location of the new camera sites once they have been determined.

According to Tasmania Police, speed is a significant factor in fatal and serious traffic crashes on Tasmanian roads and speed cameras have been proven to contribute to a reduction in these types of crashes.

The philosophy behind their use of speed cameras is to positively influence driver behaviour by increasing community perception that when a person drives above the speed limit, there is a high risk of being caught.  Fixed and mobile speed cameras operate daily throughout the state and the enforcement activities associated with those cameras form part of the basis of changing driver behaviour.

Related Content

  • June 22, 2016
    Enforcement comes in many guises
    Colin Sowman looks at some enforcement case studies from around the world. It is a sad fact of life that unenforced laws are not adhered to by a sometimes sizable proportion of the public and once enforcement is seen to be lacking, some drivers can take this to extremes and authorities must decide how to regain control.
  • September 26, 2024
    Esri maps cause and effect
    The work of the Connecticut Transportation Safety Research Center means engineers can concentrate on developing more effective safety measures, rather than having to sort out raw crash data
  • October 30, 2015
    New equipment aids clamp-down on drug drivers
    The type-approval of roadside drug testing equipment could bring about fundamental changes to the way police tackle the problem as Colin Sowman finds out. It has been almost 50 years since the first drink-driving laws were introduced but the problem persists: the European Commission estimates that 25% of road fatalities in the EU are the result of alcohol consumption. Statistics from the UK show that 20% of drivers killed in road accidents in 2012 were over the blood alcohol limit for driving.
  • February 25, 2015
    New legal basis brings EU wide cross border enforcement
    Pan-EU enforcement is set to become a reality after legislation is revised. In May 2014 the European Court of Justice ruled that European Directive 2011/82/EU, which came into force in November 2013 to facilitate the exchange of information between member states in relation to eight road traffic offences, had been set up on an incorrect legal basis. The regulations had been introduced under police cooperation rules on the prevention of crime, but the Court decided that the measures in the Directive do not c