Drivers cop $5.27MILLION in fines from Sydney unmarked mobile speed cameras last month alone

Sydney motorists have been slugged more than $5.27million in fines from unmarked speed cameras last month alone.

Fines handed out to NSW drivers have soared by 900 per cent since the removal of the ‘Speed Camera Ahead’ signs that were previously required to be placed 250m before the camera. 

Despite the controversial removal of warning signs, and 23,149 drivers being hit with fines in March alone, it has made virtually no impact of road fatalities. 

Ninety-three people died on NSW roads so far this year, compared to 94 for the same period in 2020.

Sydney motorists have been slugged more than $5.27million in fines from unmarked speed cameras last month alone

Fines handed out to NSW drivers have soared by 900 per cent since the removal of the ‘Speed Camera Ahead’ signs that were previously required to be placed 250m before the camera

Despite the controversial removal of warning signs, and 23,149 drivers being hit with fines in March alone, just one extra life has been saved this year

Nationals MP Wes Fang, who has been vocal about his disapproval of Transport Minister Andrew Constance’s move, said drivers in regional areas of the state are most impacted.

‘I fear that we are having a detrimental effect on rural and regional families because people are losing their licences and then their livelihoods all to raise more money to prop up the state’s balance sheet,’ Mr Fang told The Daily Telegraph.

‘Every time we see a speeding fine its potentially one more worker whose lost his or her licence, one more family that will be without an income.’ 

According to Revenue NSW data, 33,634 mobile speed camera fines were dished out in February.

From January to the end of Match this year, $14.88million in fines were issued to NSW drivers, compared to just $1.25m in the same period in 2020.

Labor’s Roads spokesman John Graham slammed the removal of warning signs as revenue raising by the Liberal Government.

According to Revenue NSW data, 33,634 mobile speed camera fines were dished out in February

From January to the end of Match this year, $14.88million in fines were issued to NSW drivers, compared to just $1.25m in the same period in 2020

‘They will be popping champagne corks down at the Treasury when they see these record figures,’ he said. 

Mr Constance said in November when the changes were announced that it wasn’t about revenue raising but about saving lives, with the signs removed over a 12-month period to change motoring behaviour. 

NRMA spokesman Peter Khoury said it was not good policy as cameras were put at crash-prone locations with signs which educated drivers.

‘We’ve lost all of that education, we still have the enforcement but all too often people don’t find they’ve done the wrong thing till two or three weeks later,’ he told 9News Sydney.

‘It will catch people, it just won’t change their behaviour.’