Low Tolerance Arguments

There are a number of arguments presented by the Government in defence of the low tolerance limits

	Victorian Department of Justice - I was only a few kilometres over the limit. Why should I be punished?
	Victorian Department of Justice - My speedo is inaccurate. Will you withdraw the notice?
	Victorian Police Department Policy - It's the Motorists Problem
	Victorian Police - Tolerance of 9km/h is permitted
	Victorian Police - the community may be aware of speed tolerances and "de facto" speed limits may be in force.

This is the complete text from the Victorian Department of Justice website in the section titled "Common criticisms of speed cameras" in response to the question: I was only a few kilometres over the limit. Why should I be punished?

Tackling speeding motorists is one of the most effective ways to reduce road trauma. If every Victorian reduced their average speed by just 5km/h, some 95 lives could be saved and a further 1,300 serious injuries prevented every year.

The speedometers on most modern cars are designed to overstate vehicle speed by about 2km/h.

The speed shown on the top right corner of your infringement notice is the alleged speed --- which is around 2-3km/h lower than the actual speed you were detected at.

Even a couple of kilometres an hour makes a big difference to how your vehicle stops in an emergency, or skids, or swerves, or survives an impact. If you collide with a pedestrian, as little as five kilometres an hour can be the difference between life and death.

What is wrong with this text?

Consider the following two statements:

These are unrelated statements

The impression conveyed is that the alleged speed is corrected to account for your speedometer overstating the vehicle speed.

The correction to the infringement notice is the Legislated error on the speed detection device in line with Road Safety (General) Regulations 1999:- 306. Testing of speed measuring devices (ii) . It is incorrect to state " the actual speed you were detected at ". The speed detection device has an measurement error of 2-3%, it is the speed the detection device calculated, not necessarily the vehicle speed.

" speedometers on most modern cars ". What is the basis of this statement? This is contrary to the legislated requirements under Road Safety (Vehicles) Regulations 1999 which require a vehicle to be fitted with a speedometer of ±10% accuracy.

Further, this raises the question as to whether the enforcement processes encompasses an assessment of what constitutes a "modern" car. Are we to believe that infringement notices are issued taking into consideration the age of the vehicle or likely accuracy of its speedometer?