Here we go with another rave about speed cameras.
After recent announcements in Queensland that the speed tolerance would be wiped out, there comes news that Victorian police have been caught out breaking their own camera placement rules.
They’ve been caught hiding mobile speed cameras in bushes and behind road signs and at the bottom of hills.
The Herald Sun has reported that the cops are now planning to rewrite their own rules – and get this – they say concealing cameras is necessary to protect operators from injury.
Seriously? How is hiding behind a bush going to protect anyone if a vehicle runs over it?
Currently the police guidelines on speed camera placement say that “under no circumstances” are cameras to be concealed.
However, Speed Camera Commissioner Gordon Lewis now endorses a change to the guidelines.
This follows a Herald Sun campaign where readers were asked to dob in cameras placed incorrectly.
Readers dobbed in 116 mobile camera sites, but after a nine-month investigation Lewis found none was in breach of the guidelines and three that were placed on downhill stretches were required for safety reasons.
So why have a dob-in campaign, nine-month investigation, or even bother re-writing the rules when it seems the commissioner can just override public concerns and ignore the current guidelines?
Why should we worry what the Victorian police are doing, you say? The problem is that this sort of disease is contagious. Don’t say it won’t happen in your state!