the ohiro road speed trapSo, Wel­ling­ton’s busiest urb­an speed cam­era is situ­ated down Ohiro Road (which, for those unfa­mil­i­ar with this road, starts down in Aro Val­ley, works its way up to Brook­lyn, the meanders down through Happy Val­ley to Island Bay).

This par­tic­u­lar Wel­ling­tonista knows the route well – I’ve been pinged at least four times over the last year. It’s hard to recon­cile the rationale of nation­al road poli­cing man­ager Super­in­tend­ent Dave Cliff – who states that sites for fixed cam­er­as had to meet one of two cri­ter­ia: either they were in a spot where there was a his­tory of speed-related crashes or where speed had been a prob­lem, such as out­side schools – with the sec­tion of Ohiro Rd where all my tick­ets have been picked up (between the Cinema and the 70k zone). The loc­al school isn’t on the road, there’s no major inter­sec­tions, and I’ve nev­er been aware of any crashes on that par­tic­u­lar stretch (not, of course, that that means there has­n’t been dozens I’m not aware of).

The fact that it is such a long, unin­ter­rup­ted and down­hill sec­tion of road is, of course, why it gets so many ‘speed­sters’. As you roll down the hill towards Island Bay, you can­’t but help build up some extra momentum – con­stant brak­ing is required to keep with­in the lim­it, and, if like me you tend to judge the speed of the car by the sound of the engine more than the actu­al speedo (which in my car is infuri­at­ingly obscured by the steer­ing wheel), it’s easy to let it sneak up without real­ising. If you roll past the cam­era when your car has picked up an extra 10kph on you then – ping! – kiss anoth­er $80 good­bye.

It’s inter­est­ing to note that the oth­er speed cam­era loc­a­tion around the cent­ral city that’s doing a lot of busi­ness is the one at the bot­tom of Adelaide Road, between the big Rid­di­ford Steet inter­sec­tion and Hall Street. Again, situ­ated at the end of a long, straight, down­hill stretch of road, and, in this case, hid­den away behind a tree. Much like the one, also on Adelaide Road (at the end of anoth­er long, straight down­hill stretch) that you pass every time you drive into Island Bay.

Still, that’s what brakes are for, I sup­pose…