Police go back in time to nab tech-savvy speeding motorists

VICTORIA’S police force will ditch the digital world for analogue in its latest attempt to slow down the state’s speeding motorists, reviving decades-old technology for a blitz on leadfoots.

Operation Retro will reintroduce the digitector, a 1970s-era speed measurement device that uses two pneumatic strips placed 25 metres apart to work out the speed a vehicle is travelling. The recorded speed is then displayed to police on a digital device connected to the digitector.

“Even though we don’t use this technology often, it is a highly effective speed measurement device that enables us to enforce the speed limit in built up areas where other technology can’t be used,” Prahran Highway Patrol sergeant James Robbins said.

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The blitz will run in the Stonnington and Port Phillip areas for one day a month over the next five months.

Reverting to analogue technology to trick motorists more used to digital forms of detection isn’t new, with Victoria Police often dusting off the digitector for a number of speed blitzes throughout the state. It was last used about three months ago.

NSW Police also appear to drag the devices out of the cupboard occasionally.

"These days, repeat speeding offenders are always on the lookout for a police car with a radar attached, but they have all forgotten about the digitector," Victoria Police senior sergeant Wayne Cully said at a separate roll-out of the devices way back in 2009.

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"It's pure mathematics. This device always catches the speeding drivers by surprise, they don't realise they've been caught until they're being waved in."

Police are worried about the number of speeding motorists on the state’s roads after the death toll rose to 291 in 2016 – a 15 percent rise over 2015’s tally and the fourth year running that the annual toll has risen.

According to a Victorian auditor general’s report tabled in 2006, Digitectors were “not commonly used [by Victoria Police] because of the time taken for setting up the device and their poor covertness”.

Victoria recorded more than 299,000 speeding infringements in the first three months of the 2016-17 financial year. Of all the infringements handed out, more than 27,000 had the fine reduced to an official warning.