By Tom Rabe and Lucy Cormack
Motorists will be alerted to all mobile speed cameras across NSW from January next year after the state government backflipped on the key road safety measure in a major policy backdown.
Roads Minister Natalie Ward on Monday announced the government would reintroduce signage before and after mobile speed cameras sites just two years after it removed them in a bid to drive down the state’s road toll.
The NSW government will reintroduce speed camera signage by January 1.Credit: Rhett Wyman
“This is an opportunity for us as a government to demonstrate that we are listening to the community, taking that feedback on board,” Ward said.
“So from January 1 you will see all mobile speed camera vehicles having those signs before and after the cars on every road.”
The November 2020 decision to remove signage resulted in a major jump in speeding fines across the state, which saw the government come under intense pressure to reinstate them.
Former transport minister Andrew Constance for months resisted the push from the opposition, arguing the measure would save lives.
Monday’s backflip comes almost a year after the government watered down the original policy by marking the mobile speed camera vehicles. By January 1, Ward said signage would be rolled out before and after those vehicles to warn drivers.
“These additional warning signs will help educate drivers in real time, giving them advanced warning to slow down at these high-risk points of our road network,” she said.
Asked whether Monday’s announcement was a capitulation to the opposition, which has been campaigning to remove the signs since the Berejiklian government introduced the policy in 2020, Ward said it showed the government was listening to the community.
“This is a government that demonstrates that we listen to feedback,” she said. “We’re prepared to be agile and adjust our policies in accordance with community expectations.”
She rejected the government was prioritising votes over saving lives on NSW roads.
The government in 2020 cited modelling from Monash University Accident Research Centre that suggested removing signage could save between 34 and 43 lives, and prevent around 600 serious injuries in NSW each year.
Constance argued that removing speed camera signage would change driver behaviour over time, given people would not know when they could potentially have their speed recorded.
The changes were a “retrograde step in road safety in NSW”, said Dr John Crozier, the chair of the National Trauma Committee at the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons.
Dr Crozier, who led the federal government review into road safety, said it was a “perverse decision in the face of the current trends of death and serious injury on NSW roads”.
NSW Labor leader Chris Minns said the government’s backflip was vindication of what the opposition had argued for many years.
“This has been revenue raising on a giant scale. They’ve gone from collecting about $4 million a year in low range speed fines to over $45 million in just one financial year, straight out of the pockets of the families of NSW,” he said.
“When you’ve been looking at an issue for over 18 months, and the government’s steadfastly batted back any request for change, and yet they do it on the eve of an election, we regard it pretty cynically.”
The backflip comes after a parliamentary inquiry into mobile speed cameras recommended their signage be replaced.
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