The Canterbury metro district rated in the top three of national data for seatbelt, mobile phone and static speed camera offences, tallying up $2.018 million in fines from January to September this year.
About 2150 motorists in the area - which ranges from the Waimakariri River, south to Governors Bay and west to Hornby - were caught by police not wearing a seatbelt.
However, drivers in Counties Manakau Central were the worst in the country at buckling up, clocking up 2441 seatbelt offences, with $346,950 in fines.
Last year, Canterbury metro topped the list with 3054 offences, and Counties Manukau Central was the runner-up with 2610 seatbelt offences.
Seatbelts reduce the risk of death by 60 per cent in the front seat and 44 per cent for back seat passengers, a police spokeswoman said.
Distracted drivers using their mobile phones were the most prolific in the Canterbury metro area, clocking up 2058 offences and $157,600 in fines to police.
Drivers on their phones in the Central Auckland district were the second worst, with 1887 offences this year, until September, totalling $145,920 in fines.
Police believe using a cellphone while driving increases the risk of having a crash by up to 23 times.
“Things can change around you in a split second, and if you’re not paying attention you may not have time to react and avoid a crash. Put your phone out of reach and preferably out of sight, and if you urgently need to use it, pull over and stop the vehicle,” a police spokeswoman said.
Mobile speed cameras, which are generally unmarked vehicles parked on the roadside by police, brought in $1.55 million in revenue from the Canterbury metro area.
The cameras attached to vehicles, which tend to be plain vans, are parked on the side of the road and are generally made to look inconspicuous.
They can be deployed to high-risk areas of the city to target speeding motorists with the locations changing, to encourage drivers to slow down across the whole road network.
On more than 28,000 occasions this year, drivers in the Canterbury Metro district
were caught speeding by the cameras.
Drivers in Waitemata were caught 21,305 times by the cameras in the west district and 18,617 in the north district.
These offences gathered $1.51 million and $1.19 million in fines respectively.
Said a police spokeswoman: “Our message around speed is that the speed limit is just that – a limit – not a target. A small change in speed makes a big difference to injury severity in a crash. Speed has the biggest impact on the outcome of a crash.
“People think they are bulletproof – crashes only happen to other people. However, the reality is that if you are using the roads, your survival depends on your behaviour as well as the behaviour of all the other drivers around you.”
Seatbelt offences 2019 (to September)
1. Counties Manakau (Central) – 2441, totalling $346,950 in fines
2. Canterbury (Metro) – 2157, totalling $303,900 in fines
3. Waikato (Hamilton) – 1817, totalling $263,850 in fines
Mobile phone offences 2019 (to September)
1. Canterbury (Metro) –2058, totalling $157,600 in fines
2. Auckland (Central area) – 1887, totalling $145,920 in fines
3. Counties Manakau (Central) – 1515, totalling $116,880 in fines
Mobile speed camera offences 2019 (to September)
1. Canterbury (Metro) – 28,748, totalling $1.55 million in fines
2. Waitemata (west) –21,305, totalling $1.51 million in fines
3. Waitemata (north) – 18,617, totalling $1.19 million in fines
