February speed operation catches some out

Twenty-four drivers have received tickets in Dunedin and Clutha since the police's `Safer February' campaign began, as police keep the lowered speed tolerance in place for the entire month.

Any driver detected driving at more than 4kmh over the speed limit this month will be stopped, breath-tested and action will be taken, police say.

The lowered tolerance was introduced at Queen's Birthday 2010 and is usually put in place during holiday weekends.

Acting national road policing manager Superintendent Rob Morgan said police crash analysis indicated February had the third highest proportion of crashes in which speed was a contributing factor and with that in mind, police would retain the lowered tolerance for the whole month.

"At the end of February, we will consider the outcomes, and if the analysis supports it, we will consider further long periods or even permanent lowering [of] the tolerance."

Dunedin-Clutha police area traffic manager Senior Sergeant Phil McDouall said for the first two weeks of February, traffic teams were also concentrating on road safety around schools, during which time they ticketed 45 drivers.

With a further 24 tickets handed out in the last 10 days, it was disappointing to see people still thought they could drive up to 10kmh over the posted speed limit, when the small 4kmh tolerance was only designed for cases where people's speeds had unconsciously crept up or where speedos were "out".

Supt Morgan said police would keep on changing things, introducing innovations they believed would help and monitoring the outcomes, but at this stage there was no silver bullet to stop people speeding.

"There are instead incremental changes that little by little can make a difference."