Speed traps on Gold Coast are certainly sneaky - but the tactics are justified
Police are causing consternation among some motorists by setting up speed traps in increasingly sneaky locations. Statistics reveal why they're doing it, writes Keith Woods.
Gold Coast
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PICTURE the scene. It’s 9pm at night, just two days before Christmas. Thousands of people are leaving Movie World in Oxenford after the last of its White Christmas shows which, as always, have been a huge hit with families.
Tired little ones snuggle in the back seats. Some are overtired after an evening of excitement and are crying. Their parents are getting jaded now too, sore feet from walking, sore shoulders from a little one held aloft for a perfect view of santa passing in the parade. It’s been a great night, but it’s time to get on the road home.
It takes an age to get out of the car park as everyone tries to leave at once. When they do, while most cars turn onto the M1, some skip straight across the motorway junction and onto the near-empty Helensvale Road. Freedom.
The temptation to push down on the pedal and take off is great. But it’s a costly mistake. Lurking in the darkness to the side of Helensvale Road, barely visible, a police speed van waits, its trap set.
As a local who passes that location regularly, I was surprised to see the van. I’d never seen it there before. It seemed whoever had chosen that place at that time must have known what they were doing.
The immediate thought was that it was a low act to try to catch out people leaving a family-friendly event so close to Christmas. To ping them with a $177 fine at a time when bills would be rolling in.
But there’s another way to look at it. The last people who should be speeding are parents carrying the most precious of cargoes - their children - in the back. There should be no excuses.
Gold Coast drivers have an appalling record when it comes to speeding.
Councillor William Owen-Jones, whose division includes Movie World and the Helensvale Rd location where that van was spotted, last month released shocking figures gleaned by council from ‘smiley face’ speed cameras on suburban roads in his area.
The cameras recorded a minimum of three in ten drivers speeding as they approached. At one site, Halcyon Way in Hope Island, the figure was 67%.
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Other councillors have also reported shocking figures in their areas. Remember, these cameras are not on the M1. They’re located on suburban roads, where the speed limit is usually 50 or 60km/h. Roads lined by houses, where local children ride their bikes.
The figures mirror what is being reported by the QPS. From December 9 to January 29, when police were running their Christmas road safety campaign, speeding offences were up a massive 31% on the previous year across Queensland.
And then there’s the most frightening statistic of all - the one that tells us that road fatalities on the Gold Coast have more than doubled in the last 12 months.
As we all well know, Hinterland roads are especially bad. A two-day blitz by police at Mount Tamborine in October saw hundreds nabbed for speeding - 60 of them for being at least 40km/h over the limit.
It’s just crazy stuff. You have to ask what the hurry is - and why people think it’s worth risking not just a fine, but the pain and trauma of shattered lives.
On Monday, the community in Helensvale was understandably distressed to hear that a young boy was approached by a man who asked him to get into a van while he was walking home from school. The memory of Daniel Morcombe is never far from parents’ minds.
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But these cases are mercifully rare. Speeding is not. It’s a real and present danger to our kids in these suburban areas too. There have been too many tragedies where speed is a factor, and innocent children have been the victims.
Is it a low act when cops get sneaky to catch errant motorists out as they leave a family event? Is it revenue raising?
Not a bit of it. If it makes people think again and slow down, it’s worth it. Especially when they’ve got children in the car.
Their lives are worth far more than any $177 ticket.
'NIGHTMARE' GOLD COAST JUNCTION FACING TOTAL GRIDLOCK
One can only imagine how Pine Ridge Rd in Coombabah got its name.
Anyone unfamiliar with the area may assume from its evocative title that it bisects a green and pleasant place.
But although there is nature in abundance nearby, there is nothing green and pleasant about this choked-up thoroughfare.
It’s almost permanently clogged with traffic. It’s a slaughter zone for kangaroos and wallabies.
Locals most certainly don’t find it pleasant. The word “nightmare” is constantly used.
The point at which it meets the Gold Coast Highway and Captain Cook Drive, at the Norco dairy, is surely nudging the top of the list of the Gold Coast’s worst intersections.
Anyone approaching the junction from the Pine Ridge Road direction should consider bringing essential supplies, such is the wait faced by motorists.
The problem is not just on council roads. The junction is beginning to become a massive pinch point for traffic travelling along the Gold Coast Highway too, with dashcam footage supplied to this column showing pure gridlock heading east to west at peak hours.
Council has allocated $5.2m in its capital works budget to upgrade the junction at the roads it controls.
It’s something Bonney MP Sam O’Connor said is long overdue.
“I don’t think it’s been upgraded for 20-something years,” he said.
“Slip lanes and turn lanes are not long enough. On the Pine Ridge side, they really just need another lane. Nightmare is an understatement. The last time I was there, I think it took me four light changes to get through.”
But councillors are reluctant to plough ahead without the involvement of the state government, which controls the Gold Coast Highway. They expect the state will ultimately widen the highway to three lanes in the busy section between Pine Ridge Road and the Oxley Dr/Olsen Ave junction. They don’t want to waste ratepayer funds making changes to their roads now that would be made redundant by any such future upgrade.
However the state, like the traffic on its highway, is in no hurry to move.
In an October letter to Mr O’Connor, Transport Minister Mark Bailey said his department is undertaking “technical investigations” on how best to manage traffic through the intersection, and promised to work with council in relation to a “possible future intersection upgrade”.
Mr Bailey also said more than half a million dollars had been allocated through to 2023 to undertake “planning” for the intersection - but that means any actual upgrade works would be at least three years away.
That would be too long, according to Division 4 councillor Cameron Caldwell.
“It’s getting to a point where we can’t tolerate nothing being done,” Cr Caldwell told this column.
“We have the funding allocated and we know that the intersection is reaching a crisis point.
“If there is no willingness from the state government to invest in their road, we will simply have to go it alone.”
Cr Caldwell said he was concerned the Coomera Connector, which will meet the highway not so far away at Helensvale, will feed more traffic towards the junction when its built. He also fears it may have another side-effect.
“My concern is that with the Coomera Connector project looming for the state government they may lose sight of the smaller but very significant road projects that really are very important,” he said.
“I don’t want the department and the minister to be all-consumed by one decade-long project when we need action on smaller projects across the city.”
That would be a shame. The state runs the risk of spending hundreds of millions to solve traffic snarls in one area, only to see the problem pop up worse than ever just a couple of kilometres away.
As with the upgrade currently taking place at the Olsen Ave junction, fixing this particular intersection would cost a lot less.
It should be done sooner rather than later, allowing Pine Ridge Rd to be synonymous less with fume-gargling gridlock, and more with the nearby greenery that no doubt gave it its name.
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