Opposition guns for Multanovas
From The West Australian
By Ronan O'Connell
April 3, 2006
The Opposition has called
for changes to speed camera use after police admitted that Multanovas
can return false figures when measuring the speed of a car changing
lanes. Opposition road safety spokesman John McGrath said it was unacceptable
for Multanovas to return false readings.
Police admitted on Friday that readings
taken from cars which were changing lanes could be wrong.
The admission came in the wake of claims
by world-renowned radar expert Stuart Nixon that research he had done
found Multanovas could be out by up to 15kmh in such circumstances.
“Multanovas and speeding is such
a big issue in the community that the system has to be fail-safe,”
Mr McGrath said. “If there is any discrepancy in the readings
of Multanovas then there must be immediate changes made to rectify
that situation.”
Police Minister John D’Orazio said
the best way to avoid a Multanova infringement was to drive within
the speed limit. “I am confident that WA Police are operating
the Multanova cameras properly and fairly but there are appeal processes
available to people who feel they have been incorrectly infringed,”
he said.
Road Safety Council chairman Grant Dorrington
also supported the use of Multanovas. “Multanovas produce correct
readings 99 per cent of the time and are a crucial way of keeping
the roads safe,” he said. “This research has not brought
up anything police did not already know and I don’t think there
is any reason for the accuracy of Multanovas to be brought into question.”
The officer in charge of the camera section,
Sen. Sgt Carl Fisher, admitted that Multanovas could return false
readings of cars that were changing lanes but said the inaccuracy
would be negligible. He said Multanovas usually cancelled such readings
and that mistakes were also sometimes identified by officers viewing
footage of supposed speeding offences.
