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Speed cameras triple to cut road toll

Speed cameras triple to cut road toll

The number of speed cameras on WA roads will more than triple over the next five years in a move the State Government hopes will have a big impact on the road toll.

Road safety experts support the expansion, with expectations the first cameras will be rolled out within a year.

On average, 60 people are killed on WA roads each year in speeding-related crashes and another 375 are seriously injured, according to the Office of Road Safety.

Road Safety Minister Liza Harvey said the increase in cameras would bring WA more in line with NSW and Victoria, which had the nation's lowest road fatality rates.

"Speed and red-light cameras are internationally recognised as the quickest way to improve driver behaviour on a large scale," she said.

RAC data suggests there would have been 74 fewer road deaths last year if WA had matched Victoria's road safety improvement record.

The combined cameras, which catch drivers running red lights and speeding to beat a light change, are already installed at 30 intersections and a review found they cut crashes at those sites by 60 per cent on average. Under the Government's plan, the speed and red-light camera fleet will be tripled from 30 to 90 and there will be six times more fixed cameras - up from five to 30.

The fixed cameras are placed on freeways and other busy roads.

The plan also includes a trial of point-to-point cameras, which measure speed over distance, and 600 more deployment hours for mobile cameras at crash hotspots.

The strategy will be funded from the Road Trauma Trust Account but the Gov-ernment has not unveiled what it will cost because the purchase of the cameras is going out to tender.

Mrs Harvey said the "revenue-raising" argument annoyed her because road crashes and trauma admissions cost about $200 million a year, more than the revenue collected from infringements.

"(But) I'm not looking at expanding the camera fleet to cover the cost of crashes, I'd rather improve safety and I know we can do that by increased compliance with speed limits," she said.

Mairi Ogbourne, whose 14-year-old daughter Hayley Cusato was killed by a speeding driver in 2006, supported a point-to-point speed trial but said a more visible police presence and tougher penalties for repeat offenders were needed rather than more speed cameras.

She said the trauma of Hayley's death never left her family.

Office of Road Safety executive director Iain Cameron said the extra cameras fitted with the Towards Zero road safety strategy, which had already resulted in a 51 per cent reduction in speeding-related fatal and serious crashes between 2008 and 2013.