State’s most active school zone speed cameras produce 1 in 5 fines
The NRMA is calling on the NSW government to conduct audits of the state’s most dangerous school zones after almost 27,000 speeding fines were handed out in five locations alone.
NSW
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The NRMA is calling on the NSW government to conduct audits of the state’s most dangerous school zones after almost 27,000 speeding fines were handed out in five locations alone.
The top five most active speed cameras in the state accounted for nearly one in five fines issued in the 2023-2024 financial year, raising a total $34 million in revenue.
Drivers copped a whopping 7,813 fines for speeding southbound on Woodville Road past Old Guildford Public School and Rowland Hassall School in Chester Hill.
Speed cameras on the Princes Highway in Kogarah, Victoria Road in Ryde, Lane Cove Road in North Ryde and The Boulevarde through Strathfield rounded out the top five.
Meanwhile motorists were stung for running the red light 144 times over the same period driving northbound through school zones on both Chalmers Street in Redfern and Meredith Street in Bankstown.
Lane Cove Road also reappeared as a red light hotspot, with cameras northbound clocking 50 drivers in one year.
The findings are contained in the NRMA’s ‘School’s In’ report, which calls for road safety audits to be “urgently actioned” at every school in the state including physical site visits, starting with the top earning speed camera locations.
The report also revealed more than 40 per cent of 550 parents the NRMA surveyed have witnessed an accident or near miss during school hours at their child’s school.
When asked to name their three biggest safety concerns about school zones, 56 per cent cited speeding and half noted a lack of parking near schools.
Kiss and drops zones were the most popular measure to make school zones safer, followed by more parking and alternative access to schools on a main road.
It comes after a AAMI survey found 63 per cent of families fear for their child’s safety when crossing roads and encountering careless drivers, despite one in 10 respondents admitting to speeding through school zones if they don’t see any children around.
NRMA spokesman Peter Khoury said when the NRMA visited one of the locations frequently flagged by members, they found one of three speed camera warning signs was missing in a “high clutter area” where existing signage is already obscured.
The placement of signs behind bus stops and overgrown greenery on Victoria Road near Cressy Road in Ryde means “you’re not going the sign, and you’re not going to slow down,” he said.
Mr Khoury said the government must address the “structural challenges”.
Mona Vale mother of four Alex Williams walks or drives her two primary school-aged daughters to class, and said she will allow 7-year-old Imogen and 5-year-old Abigail to walk by themselves when they get older.
While the ten minute stroll is “generally pretty safe” she said, improvements could be made both for pedestrians and motorists.
“They (the school) don’t always have enough volunteers to do the lollipop lady or lollipop man job,” Ms Williams said.
“There are a few instances where drivers aren’t paying enough attention, or there’s just so much traffic that they take a risk to turn out across multiple lanes.”
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Originally published as State’s most active school zone speed cameras produce 1 in 5 fines
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