Far North speed camera finally turned on after decade-long community campaign

The Far North's first fixed speed camera has finally been switched on after a small community's decade-long campaign to reduce crashes on the highway that passes their homes.

The camera, on State Highway 1 between Kawakawa and Moerewa, is also the first anywhere in Northland operated by New Zealand Transport Agency Waka Kotahi, and the first in the country with signs to warn approaching motorists.

The speed camera was first installed for trials more than a year ago but activation was delayed amid local resistance to the use of automatic number plate recognition, a capability NZTA said had since been removed.

It was delayed again last month when it was vandalised with a sharp implement just days before it was due to be turned on. .

Roddy Hapati Pihema, the chair of the Taumatamākuku Community Residents Representative Committee, said the attack on the camera was disappointing.

"I wasn't angry because we knew we'd have some pushback. It was more disappointment that people couldn't see what we were trying to do.

"It wasn't about revenue gathering, it wasn't about I Spy or Big Brother. It was simply about a community that was trying to create a means to slow traffic because they felt they were running the gauntlet every day," he said.

Residents in Taumatamākuku, just east of Moerewa, have long campaigned for improved road safety in and around their settlement of about 50 homes.

Their pleas fell on deaf ears at first but in recent years, under Hapati Pihema's leadership, they started gaining traction.

Speed bumps were installed in Taumatamākuku and a footpath was built so children, kuia and kaumātua no longer had to walk on the road; and in 2020 NZTA reduced the speed limit between Kawakawa and Moerewa to 80km/h.

That, however, had little effect on speeds, with an NZTA study in 2023 finding 40 percent of vehicles passing the settlement were breaking the limit.

Hapati Pihema said five people had been killed, and many more injured, on that stretch of State Highway 1 between 2018 and 2023.

With no street lighting in the area and no shoulder allowing cars to pull off the road, residents felt their lives were at risk every time they had to turn off the highway into the settlement.

They had also had enough of the trauma of tending to the dead and injured outside their homes any time there was a crash, he said.

"People think of the police, the fire brigade and the ambulance service as the first responders, but it is always my community that is first to answer the call every time there's a crash out there.

"The community was tired of the amount of life lost on our portion of the highway. They tried for years to reduce accidents but to no avail, so the camera was our last-ditch hope."

Hapati Pihema said some of the resistance to the camera came from misinformation about its capabilities.

It was initially supposed to be fitted with automatic number plate recognition technology but that was removed at the community's insistence, he said.

Locals would not allow "weaponised cameras" in their area, he said.

"We removed everything except the ability to track speed, that was the whole point. It wasn't about seatbelts, warrants or registrations, it was simply about a community trying to lower speeds."

When RNZ visited Kawakawa to gauge motorists' views about the camera, it was clear that opinions were nuanced.

Norman, who had just returned to Kawakawa after five years in Auckland without a single speeding ticket, believed it was a case of "revenue grabbing".

However, Mohe, from nearby Ngapipito, said the camera was needed.

"They're there to do a job, keep everybody safe. Too many speedsters on the road as it is."

Kevin, who was visiting from Timaru, agreed.

"They serve a purpose, you slow down for a speed camera or it costs you a fortune. So I have no problem with them."

Far North deputy mayor Kelly Stratford said the push for improved road safety in the area started at least 30 years ago, but stepped up a gear in 2014 with the formation of Moerewa Safer Roads.

While that initiative was focussed on streets within Moerewa, Taumatamākuku residents started attending the meetings to stress the problems they were having.

They then took up their concerns directly with NZTA, helped by a law change brought in by the previous government giving communities a say when it came to setting speed limits in their areas.

Taumatamākuku residents succeeded in getting the limit on State Highway 1 lowered - albeit not by as much as they wanted - but that on its own had not reduced speeds.

The camera was just one more tool to persuade drivers to stick to the speed limit, Stratford said.

"There's a straight stretch between Kawakawa and Taumatamākuku that people just fly along. It's very narrow, there's sunstrike risk all the way. You can't see and people still overtake you. It's just ridiculous."

Stratford said Taumatamākuku was lucky to have a leader like Hapati Pihema who was not prepared to just sit back and wait for someone else to stop the carnage.

Northland has two other fixed speed cameras, both on State Highway 1. They are located at Te Kamo in Whangārei and Kaiwaka in the Kaipara District.

They are currently operated by the police but, along with roughly 150 other speed cameras around the country, will be handed over to NZTA by July 2025.

An NZTA spokesperson said the agency would also take over the management of mobile cameras in 2025, but police would continue to detect speeding, red-light running, seatbelt and mobile phone offences.

Money from speed camera fines went into the government's consolidated fund, not to NZTA or the police.

The new camera between Kawakawa and Moerewa was activated on 7 July - but only time, and tickets, will tell if it has the desired effect.