Cha-Ching! The city’s busiest speed cameras | Canterbury News | Local News in Canterbury

It's official. A speed camera in Hornby and another in the central city are Christchurch's most prolific in terms of nabbing speeding motorists.

The one on Main South Rd, Hornby, caught 2676 motorists last year - followed closely by a camera on Fitzgerald Ave, which generated 2530 tickets.

Between them, that equates to more than 400 tickets a month.

Both are in 50km/h zones.

The two cameras have overtaken the busiest speed camera sites of 2008, which were Northcote Rd in Papanui followed by Pages Rd, Aranui.

Figures released under the Official Information Act show $30.4 million, or $2.5 million a month, was collected from 340,368 speed-camera tickets issued nationwide in the 12 months to October 31 last year.

These figures were down by about $5 million and almost 100,000 tickets compared with the previous year.

The revenue figures were not broken down into values for each site but if each ticket issued was for $80 - the fine for travelling between 11 and 15 km/h over the limit - tickets on Main South Rd would have generated at least $214,080.

Nationally, motorists on State Highway 1 in the Ngauranga Gorge near Wellington were hit the hardest, clocking up 8179 tickets in the year to October. They were followed by two sites in Auckland - in Manurewa (8147) and Glendene (7461).

Canterbury Road Policing Manager Inspector Al Stewart said the figures showed there were still "far too many" people speeding.

"Speed is an aggravating figure in a lot of crashes. It also features very highly in fatal statistics. That's why we want to get it down," he said.

"Studies show that by bringing the mean speed down, you reduce the number of crashes, and that's simply because people have more time to react."

While changing speeding behaviour was up to the individual, speeding tickets were an effective deterrent, he said.

"Getting a ticket is a sharp shock for them," he said.

The other three speed camera sites in the city are Northcote Rd, Papanui; Pages Rd, Aranui; and Main North Rd, Belfast.