Autoblog

If you thought speed camera and roadside police radar proliferation in your country was bad, spare a thought for the Aussies. More than 45,000 drivers in the Australian state of Victoria are on the verge of losing their licenses, with blame being centered on the number of speed cameras that dot the highways.

Australian licenses use a points system where drivers lose a certain number of points for each speeding offense, up to a maximum of 12 before having their license suspended. The Victorian road agency VicRoads has revealed that there are 9,000 more drivers close to losing their licenses then at the same time in 2005, with 150 speed cameras and 83 traffic light cameras on hand to monitor the state's 3.6 million registered drivers.

Opponents of the system regard the installation of speed cameras as just the latest form of revenue-raising for the government. For the 2007-08 financial year, state government revenue collected from regulatory fees, including speed camera revenue, increased by 6.2%. Of course, the regulators will always cough up the defense that the system is saving lives. We'll let you decide for yourselves.

[Source: Drive.com.au]