Right: This cartoon by British cartoonist Andy Davey lampoons the view that police speed cameras are solely there to raise money.
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Background information
(The following is an edited version of two wikipedia entries, one titled 'Traffic enforcement camera', and the other, 'Road speed limit enforcement in Australia'. The full text of these entries can be found at HERE and HERE)
Traffic enforcement cameras
A traffic enforcement camera (also referred to as a speed camera, red light camera, road safety camera, road rule camera, photo radar, photo enforcement or Gatso) is an automated ticketing machine. It may include a camera which may be mounted beside or over a road or installed in an enforcement vehicle to detect traffic regulation violations, including speeding, vehicles going through a red traffic light, unauthorized use of a bus lane, for recording vehicles inside a congestion charge area.
The latest automatic number plate recognition systems can be used for the detection of average speeds and raise concerns over loss of privacy and the potential for governments to establish mass surveillance of vehicle movements and therefore by association also the movement of the vehicle's owner. Vehicles owners are often required by law to identify the driver of the vehicle and a case was taken to the European Court of Human Rights who found that the Human Rights Act 1998 was not being breached. Some groups, such as the National Motorists Association in the USA, claim that systems "encourage ... revenue-driven enforcement" rather than the declared objectives.
Road speed limit enforcement in Australia
Road speed limit enforcement in Australia constitutes the actions taken by the authorities to force road users to comply with the speed limits in force on Australia's roads. Speed limit enforcement equipment such as speed cameras and other technologies such as radar and LIDAR are widely used by the authorities. In some regions, aircraft equipped with VASCAR devices are also used.
Fixed speed-only cameras are among the most commonly used. These cameras come in many forms, some free standing on poles; others mounted on bridges or overhead gantries. The cameras may consist of a box for taking photographs, as well as a smaller box for the flash, or only a single box containing all the instruments. Recently introduced infrared cameras, do not emit a blinding flash and can therefore be used to take front-on photographs showing the driver's face.
Most states are now starting to replace older analogue film fixed cameras with modern digital variants. Fixed speed cameras can use Doppler RADAR or Piezo strips embedded in the road to measure a vehicle's speed as it passes the camera.
However ANPR technology is also used to time vehicles between two or more fixed cameras that are a known distance apart (typically at least several kilometres). The average speed is then calculated using the formula speed = distance/time. The longer distance over which the speed is measured prevents drivers from slowing down momentarily for a camera before speeding up again. The SAFE-T-CAM system uses this technology, but was designed to only targets heavy vehicles. Newer ANPR cameras in Victoria are able to target any vehicle.
Trials of mobile speed cameras began in the state of Victoria in 1985. The cameras were placed, with warning signs, at sites with a history of frequent crashes. Although the cameras influenced traffic speeds up to two kilometres from the site, there was no statistically significant impact on the crash numbers found. Later warnings were removed and the effect on crash numbers appeared greater.
Mobile speed cameras were first used in New South Wales in 1991. In 1999 the authorities began to install fixed cameras, and signs warning of their presence, at crash black spots. The government of Western Australia started using speed cameras in 1988.