In 2018, the South Australian Government conducted an audit of speed cameras to ensure they are operating for safety purposes and not to raise revenue.

The audit was undertaken by an independent road safety consultant, Martin Small Consulting, with the assistance from the University of Adelaide, Centre for Automotive Safety Research.

The Audit specifically focused on addressing two key questions:

• Have speed cameras been located in areas identified as having the greatest road safety risk?
• Have speed cameras reduced speeding and the number and severity of road crashes in the locations in which they have been placed?

The audit addressed these questions by considering:

• Fatal and serious injury crash trends associated with fixed safety cameras in South Australia, where cameras had been in place for at least five years;
• Protocols and processes used by the South Australia Police to identify and prioritise the selection of mobile camera sites;
• Guidelines and selection criteria used by DPTI to identify fixed safety cameras sites;
• Offences detected by different camera methods in different locations over a sixteen year period;
• Results of the YourSAy survey and other sources of community feedback;
• Research reports on best practice for speed camera programs.

The audit also considered the evaluation of 35 intersections where a fixed camera had been installed, which found up to a 21% decrease in injury crashes in the five years after installation.

The audit recommended improvements to the program to improve road safety outcomes, increase transparency of the program and enhance community understanding and acceptance of speed camera operations in South Australia. The Department of Planning, Transport and Infrastructure and South Australian Police support these recommendations and will work together on their implementation.

More information on the Speed Camera Audit is available in the FAQs.

The audit report is available here.

References and Links:

• Speed Camera Audit Report (PDF, 605 KB)
• YourSAy Survey Outcomes Summary Report (PDF, 664 KB)
• FAQs (PDF, 513 KB)
• CASR Report: Locating and evaluating fixed cameras in South Australia (PDF, 348 KB)
• CASR Report: An examination of offences at South Australian safety camera sites (PDF, 4118 KB)
• CASR Report: Analysis of crash data from safety camera intersections in South Australia (PDF, 276 KB)

Further information on speed and red light cameras in South Australia is available on the Speed Camera website.