Pic: Rob Walls: http://robertwalls.wordpress.com/
On my infrequent trips to Hobart I have noticed that there are now both marked and unmarked police cars stationed on the exits of some towns. The police are using hand held radar guns to catch motorists and seem to have replaced the civilian cars with mounted radar guns.
I am a believer in policing the speed limits and not allowing a free for all on the roads but I am concerned about this latest practice.
We are told that the government is so broke that it is having to lay off a lot of public service employees to save money. Some of these are police. Now it seems to me that it is counter productive to have police sitting for hours at the roadside to control speeding. I am sure that they would be better used in more serious police work fighting crime and so on.
I have also seen on only one occasion the new radar speed camera mounted in a trailer.
It looked to be quite an expensive equipment and there only seemed to be the one. It also looked quite vulnerable and a determined “hoon” could interfere with it quite easily, possible by turning it away from the road or covering up the camera window.
Also having passed it, motorists could then speed with immunity, knowing there is no likelihood of another camera further along.
A refinement to this system would be to mount steel boxes on top of steel poles at least 2.5 meters high, stopping easy interference and having suitable mountings to install a camera temporarily.
If there were a series of these at strategic sites and the cameras were installed in them on a random basis, it would be a deterrent to breaking the speed limits.
A passing motorist would never know for sure if there was an active camera or not.
It really comes down to the issue of whether the government really wants to improve road safely or to use speed limits as a cash cow.
It would release police from what must be a boring waste of resources, saving money in the long run.
