Vic Police Shut Down Point-To-Point Cameras On Hume Freeway Over New Fault

Victoria Police has announced the suspension of its point-to-point cameras along the Hume Freeway until a newly-discovered fault is remedied. Resulting in nine cases of wrongfully issued penalties, the fault was described by Deputy Commissioner Ken Lay as "incredibly disappointing".

"As soon as the problem was identified we immediately suspended use of the point-to-point cameras and I will not be reinstating them until I am personally convinced that the fault has been 100 percent eradicated and that measures have been put in place to ensure that this can never happen again," Mr Lay said.

The problem was identified after police served a penalty to a driver who had been photographed in late September. The driver protested the notice, and examination revealed that the clock of one camera was out of synch with a second camera.

The reason for this is being "urgently investigated" by the Department of Justice, which has also conducted a complete check of the camera logs and verified that all other infringements were issued correctly.
Mr Lay said that faults with the system have been extremely rare, with the nine identified penalties making up a small part of the 68,000 issued since January 2008. He acknowledged however that any number of faults can have an effect on confidence in the system.

"That is nine too many. People must have confidence in the road safety camera system. We can not afford for that confidence to be eroded by errors such as these," he said.

Mr Lay said that while the cameras are off, Victoria Police will step up the number of mobile cameras along the Hume Highway.