Australian’s most heavily fined drivers

AUSTRALIANS spend roughly $1 billion dollars on speeding fines in a single year, Wheels has calculated.

Derived from state-by-state figures, the headline number indicates the current focus on speeding from road safety experts and police is generating plenty of cash for the state governments, and the tally is set to grow.

Victoria remains the most heavily-fined state, with over $350 million poured into the state’s coffers during the 2015-16 financial year.

The $356,469,497 in revenue was collected by Victoria’s network of fixed speed and red-light cameras alone, meaning fines collected by police with radar guns and mobile units are not included.

Queenslanders are next on the list, with almost a quarter of a billion dollars being collected from the state’s motorists.

The Courier Mail reports that $225,965,591 was raked in by police in 2015, an increase of $15 million (or 80,000 fines) in a single calendar year.

Meanwhile Australia’s most populous state, New South Wales, was third on the list, with over $175 million being raised in fines during the 2015-16 financial year.

Police issued $75,201,927 of those fines during traffic stops, while fixed speeding cameras collected an extra $103,394,365 from the state’s drivers.

South Australia wasn’t far behind though, with a report from the Australia Institute stating $174 million in revenue was raised during the 2014-15 financial year, equating to an average of $103 per person that was nabbed.

In Western Australia, revenue from speeding and red-light fines is channelled into the Road Trauma Trust Fund, which uses that money to improve driver safety.

The Sydney Morning Herald reports just under $110 million was raised by speeding fines in WA during the 2015-16 financial year.

As Australia’s smallest state, Tasmania sits at the bottom of the list. Justice Department figures quoted by The Advocate newspaper show just $950,499 was collected in revenue from all speed camera infringements in 2015.

On a per-capita basis, South Australian drivers were the worst hit.

Using 2016 population stats, SA residents paid on average over $100 each in fines per year. Next was Victoria with an average of $58 in fines per person, ahead of Queensland ($46), Western Australia ($41), New South Wales ($22), and Tasmania ($2).