No more warnings for NSW drivers

Signs alerting motorists in New South Wales that there is a mobile speed camera ahead will be removed across the state as the Berejiklian government cracks down on speeding drivers.

The 45 mobile speed cameras that currently operate across NSW will also have their hours of operation tripled, from 7000 hours per month to 21,000.

The move on speeding comes as the state’s minister for transport and roads, Andrew Constance, revealed harsher penalties are set to hit motorists caught drink and drug driving from next year, as part of a wider crackdown on driving offences.

Legislation due to enter parliament early next year will seek to increase the penalty for driving under the influence of both drugs and alcohol to a maximum $11,000 and two years in prison.

There is currently no combined offence, with maximum individual penalties set at $3300 and $2200 for alcohol and drugs respectively.

Constance said the new laws are about changing culture and behaviour.

“We’ve seen it happen with our world-leading mobile phone detection program, where the rate of people offending has steadily declined,” he said.

“No warning signs mean you can be caught anywhere, anytime and we want that same culture around mobile speed cameras.”

State minister for regional transport and roads, Paul Toole, said the changes are especially targeted at regional areas.

“To see so many lives lost on country roads, where the impacts are felt across entire communities, is devastating,” he said.

In 2019, speeding was deemed the cause of 136 deaths and 2941 injuries on NSW roads.

Toole said the new measures will allow the government to reinvest revenue raised from speeding fines into life-saving infrastructure on the state’s roads.

“The money generated from the mobile speed camera program will go directly to road safety initiatives through our Community Road Safety Fund, which has already seen thousands of kilometres of audio-tactile land markings, wide centre lines and more crash barriers rolled out across regional NSW,” he said.

“The NSW government is working hard to make NSW roads the safest in the world, but we need everyone to remember that it is their responsibility to drive so others survive.”