Speed cameras to stay despite faults

* By Michelle Draper
* From: AAP
* October 18, 2010 2:23PM

VICTORIA Police is unlikely to scrap "point-to-point" speed cameras despite failures resulting in erroneous charges against innocent drivers.

Nine drivers have been wrongly issued with speeding infringements on the Hume Highway in Victoria since the new cameras - which measure vehicles' average speeds over distances of about 7-10km - were introduced in 2007.

The errors were discovered after a 20-year-old woman protested her innocence when officers went her home last Thursday to confiscate her vehicle under the state's hoon laws for speeding over 150km/h.

Victoria Police, the Department of Justice and camera contractor Redflex spent the weekend trawling through 68,000 penalties issued over the past three years and found the other cases.

Some drivers had paid their fines, one was convicted and fined after arguing their case in court, and another was refused a review by police after questioning the infringement, Deputy Commissioner Ken Lay said.

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Victorian Premier John Brumby has raised the possibility of launching legal action against the contractor.

"Victoria Police and the department is examining legal action against the company. There's a contract, the system is meant to work 100 per cent of the time, and it didn't," Mr Brumby told said.

Opposition Leader Ted Baillieu said under a coalition government all speed cameras would be independently reviewed, and the findings, along with maintenance reports, would be made public.

Lawyer David Galbally QC called for all penalised drivers to have their fines refunded in full.

"If 68,000 people have been fined and there is a doubt as to the accuracy of the speed cameras from point to point, then refund the money. There shouldn't even be an argument," he said.

The only point-to-point cameras in Victoria are on the Hume Highway.

The problem, believed to be a technical fault relating to the cameras' clocks being out of sync, was confined to the stretch of road between the outer Melbourne suburb of Craigieburn and the town of Broadford.

Police have suspended the use of all the cameras until the problem is resolved, and mobile speed cameras will be used in the area in the meantime.

Mr Lay said the revelations were "enormously embarrassing" for Victoria Police, the Department of Justice and Redflex.

"It has also been very stressful and I imagine embarrassing for those nine people that have been wrongly accused of breaking the law by speeding," he said.

Police contacted two of the nine affected people last Thursday and were in the process of tracking down the remaining seven, Mr Lay said.

He said he had been provided with "very strong" advice by the Department of Justice that the problem did not affect any more than the nine infringements identified.

Mr Lay said he had been advised that a new software program could fix the problem, but he was yet to be convinced it would work.

"I'll need to see this system checked, double checked, triple checked, and checked again before I give this the OK," he said.

Police were unlikely to scrap the point-to-point cameras because measuring speed over several kilometres was arguably fairer than nabbing drivers for what could be momentary speeding, Mr Lay said.

"I see no reason why it shouldn't stay. It's strong technology," he said.

The controversial cameras replaced old cameras shut down in 2003 due to faults, after the government had been forced to refund 120,000 fines worth $17 million.

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