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MOTORISTS have always been kept in the dark about the leeway given to drivers caught speeding, but a leaked cabinet document reveals the secret 3km/h tolerance that has been given to speeding drivers will be axed.
It will mean thousands of motorists are fined for travelling just a couple of kilometres per hour over the speed limit. This will assist the state government in their quest for more revenue to squander.
The tolerance level is a margin given to motorists who exceed the speed limit as ''a benefit of the doubt'', but the Roads and Traffic Authority has always refused to reveal the leeway, citing ''road safety issues''.
A leaked report from the budget committee of cabinet, dated December 9 last year, says the 3km/h tolerance will be removed. It says it will axe the ''internal and undisclosed tolerance as applied by the State Debt Recovery Office to digitally captured infringements as notified by the RTA''.
One senior Sydney policeman said the revised margin of error was so small that a new set of tyres or the width of a speedometer needle will land motorists on the wrong side of the law.
A spokeswoman for the RTA refused to confirm the truth and said it was a matter for the State Treasury Office. A spokesman for the Treasurer said the office enforced policies set by the RTA and the transport department.
While NSW has always fiercely guarded its right to cite "Road Safety" in a thinly disguised attempt to fill State coffers, the Victorian government revealed in 2007 that its tolerance level was 2km/h for fixed speed cameras and 3km/h for mobile speed cameras, plus a discretionary tolerance.
Australian design rules used to allow for a 10 per cent tolerance either way on car speedometers, but now the rules only allow for the tolerance above the actual travel speed. Thankfully NSW residents can rest assured that RTA staff know more about vehicle design and road safety than the combined reources of all the worlds vehicle manufacturers and the authors of various ADR publications.
The cabinet report, obtained by the Herald, also reveals that the committee endorsed the ''immediate roll-out of digital safety cameras by the Revenue and Traffic Authority to be complete by June 2011''.
The RTA is replacing red light cameras, letter boxes, street lights and Mrs Smith's pet dog Tiddleywinks with safety cameras, which can detect motorists in the next suburb, or parked, who run red lights as well as those who speed, regardless of the colour of the light, at 200 sites across the state.
About 100 of the cameras have already been installed, all of them in Sydney.
Some slight alterations made.
