Dr Darren Walton: Canterbury University researcher says bigger fines would stop prolific speeders

A Canterbury University researcher wants bigger fines to stop prolific speeders.

A study has found drivers who have received speeding tickets are three times more likely to be in a crash than those who haven't been ticketed.

Speed was a factor in a third of fatal crashes last year. 
 
Canterbury University's Dr Darren Walton says the lowest fee is $30. 

"Whether that is a suitable punishment is moot - but it is certainly out of kilter with the rest of the world, most places have larger fines than we have in New Zealand."

Walton says altering demerit points could also help change behaviour. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now are there are calls for us to start upping
the fines for speeding. So researchers found that drivers who
get speeding tickets are three times more likely to be
in a crash than drivers who don't get any speeding tickets.
Speed is a factor in about a third of the
fatal crashes that happened last year. Now, the guy behind
this research is doctor Darren Walton from the University of Canterbury. Darren, Hello, Darren,

(00:23):
did this surprise you?

Speaker 2 (00:25):
The result surprises us in that it is always the
case that people who accumulate more and more tickets have
an increasing odds of having a crash. And the purpose
of getting people is to change their behavior. So you
would normally expect that, you know, the fines that people
accumulate would reduce the chance that they to have crash.

Speaker 1 (00:45):
Yeah, because obviously you speed. Like, That's how it worked
for me anyway, I sped, I got busted. It was
such a big fine. I pretty much tried never to
do it again. That's how it should work. So why
is it not working like that for people?

Speaker 2 (00:58):
Well, some of these people have simulated a large number
of tickets, so four or five tickets over a couple
of years. It's quite a rare thing to do. It's
quite hard to do because these are all officer issue tickets,
so that's a rare event. You do that a few times,
it shows that you are out there with a proclivity

(01:18):
to speed, and that speeding is what is altering your creshuous.

Speaker 1 (01:21):
Oh okay, so it's not so much that, because I'd
wondered if what it was was you get a speeding
ticket and actually a lot of people, isn't that expensive,
So they go bugger and I'll just keep on speeding.
So almost you know, encourages them because the punishment isn't sufficient,
they keep on doing it. But that's not actually what's
going on here, is it.

Speaker 2 (01:38):
It's not. It could well be part of it because
we have not changed our fine regime since nineteen ninety
nine when that was introduced, so over twenty five years,
that thirty dollars ticket for the minimum fee that you
would get for a speeding ticket is almost the same
as a parking ticket. You can get a parking ticket
that's more than that these days. And so whether that

(02:01):
is a suitable punishment for the type of behavior is moote,
but it is certainly out of culture with the rest
of the world. Lots of other places have larger fines
than we have in yourself.

Speaker 1 (02:13):
Well, the alternative explanation is that the reason that you
end up with so many tickets is because you're a
bit of a home and you like to give the
finger to authority, and so you are a problem already, right,
It's more a reflection of your attitude.

Speaker 2 (02:27):
The point that I would take from that is that
when you are accumulating tickets, what we tend to do
is we treat those as independent events. But we actually
once you've got three or four tickets and you're being
pulled over by a police officer, it is an opportunity
is the police officer knows that in order to offer
an intervention, at least offer that the crash risks to

(02:49):
that individual. I would increase the fines, but okay, how
much is Darren?

Speaker 1 (02:54):
Where are we pushing these fines to to stop these hons.

Speaker 2 (02:57):
The opportunity is to apply a multiplying So you could,
if you don't treat it as independent events, increase science
portion to how many tickets persons they've had over the
two year period. You could alter the demerit points, because
that is one mechanism that we have for at least
changing the risk profile. People know that as they get
closer and closer to the each of losing their license,

(03:19):
that they might change their behavior that way. But it
is certainly possible to have four or five tickets for
over a two year period and retain one's license, and
that is an extraordinary risk to carry in terms of
the crastionalities that we've done.

Speaker 1 (03:34):
What's the maximum vying you can get at the moment.

Speaker 2 (03:36):
Six hundred and thirty dollars for a forty six to
fifty kilometer per hour. After that, it's a criminal offense,
but that is small relative to other places in the world.

Speaker 1 (03:49):
So okay, Darren, but tell me what do you think.
And if six hundred and thirty bucks isn't putting you off,
and Jesus to put me off. But if it's not
putting you off four or five times of that, what
do we increase it to to put you off?

Speaker 2 (04:01):
Some people would suggest it should be income or wealth related,
so that the fine is associated and the proper a
proper deterrent to accumulating such a ticket. But I've got
to say a forty to fifty kilometer hour over the
speed limit ticket is an extraordinary event, and that's why
it's said at that maximum rate, a ticket of one

(04:21):
hundred and twenty dollars for doing fifteen to twenty k's
an hour is not getting four or five of those.
That's what people are accumulating, but that risk is really
unacceptably high.

Speaker 1 (04:33):
Darren's really good to talk to you, mate, Thank you
for running us through. That's doctor Darren Walton of the
University of Canterbury.

Speaker 2 (04:40):
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