Watch your speedos: NSW set to extend point-to-point speed camera coverage

An increase in the New South Wales road toll has been highlighted by the state's government as the reason for switching some of its point-to-point speed cameras over to monitoring regular traffic, which to date had only been used to measure the speed of trucks and other heavy vehicles.

Currently, the NSW road toll stands at 227 deaths for 2024, two more than for the same period in 2023. With speed being a contributing factor in 41 percent of road fatalities over the past ten years, the NSW government says that using its cameras to keep tabs on all road users instead of just truck traffic should help improve safety on its regional highway network.

The change will be conducted on a trial basis and last six months, with existing point-to-point cameras on two sections of highway – specifically the 18 kilometres of the Hume Highway between Coolac and Gundagai, and 22km of the Pacific Highway between Kew and Lake Innes – to be switched from detecting heavy vehicles only, to all vehicles.

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Why those two sections in particular? According to NSW Roads Minister John Graham, the existing speed camera infrastructure enables a fast switchover, while those two specific stretches of highway have accounted for six road fatalities combined since 2018.

“They’re both regional trials because this is a bigger problem in the regions,” Graham said to the ABC. “Although only a third of people live in regional New South Wales, that’s where two thirds of the deaths from road crashes happen.”

Compared to conventional speed cameras, which measure a vehicle’s speed at an instantaneous moment in time, point-to-point cameras instead measure the time a vehicle takes to travel a known distance in order to calculate its average speed, meaning drivers can’t evade detection by momentarily slowing down as they pass the camera, before speeding up again.

For the duration of the six-month trial, drivers found to be speeding by the point-to-point cameras on those two sections of highway will receive a warning letter rather than demerit points or a fine.