They wouldn't be if there weren't so many idiots on the road...

If there were Red Light cameras in Wellington NZ Bus would go bust paying the fines.

I think the drivers would have to pay the fines but I get what you are saying.

I believe there are some or some are going in to Wellington  and if like the Auckland ones they are painted camouflage gray so that you can't see them.  I thought the object was to get people top stop at red lites not to make revenue.  Even in Vic, Ozz the police revenue center of the South Pacific their red lite cameras have big signs on them  so people are aware and do stop unlike NZ where it's revenue by stealth..

Any visibile patrol cars are only a deterent when they are visible, its impossible for them to be everywhere at once, we have several thousand kilometers of state highways and open roads. We've all been driving along and suddenly noticed all the traffic slowing down as theres a cop ahead, once past traffic goes on its merry speeding way, even unmarked police cars are easy to detect if you know what to look out for. 

Speed cameras are an excellent concept at slowing down traffic, drivers have little knowledge of where they are, they are a good way to enforce speed limits in high risk/high crash areas and a fine to most is a significant reminder to watch their speed in the future (unless you just like racking them up and then getting the courts to wipe them). Plus any revenue gathering that punishes those who commit an offence and puts  money towards public projects is all good by me. 

All the preceeding was also /opinion

Speed cameras like we have in NZ do nothing. They are nothing but a revenue gathering tool.

What we need are speed traps like they use in other countries such as the UK. Your vehicle rego is logged and over say a 10km distance it's logged again. The computer knows the time it takes to travel this distance and therefore if your average speed exceeds the speed limit you are ticketed.
 
Speed cameras are very easily detected by radar detectors (unlike those used in cars were skilled highway units will pick up most people no matter what detectors they have or how smart they think they are). Speed traps mean if you do speed you are guaranteed of getting a ticket. You can't escape this.

So what you want is an ANPR system, probably portable. While I agree this would be more efficient than speed cameras, they still have their merits. Cost is one, they are cheaper to implement and maintain and more portable. ANPR cameras can also be easily circumvented through the use of altered plates or a special metalic paint which distorts the plates excpet to the naked eye (as recently featured on Motorway Patrol on CI) Where would the money come for an ANPR system to be implemented? In the UK only the major road networks (M1-15), some town centres and a few elite police patrols use ANPR + speed traps, they also still heavily use normal handheld and mounted speed cameras. 
Like em or lump em, speed cameras do actually catch people out who are exceeding the speed limit, at the end of the day they won't catch everyone, but hey if they punish one person who was driving faster than is safe for that stretch of road then they've have potentially saved a life (cliche alert).

You've obviously been brain washed by the Police advertizing.  All speed cameras I see here in Auckland are on nice safe stretches of road like a  down hill  section on the southern motorway at 7.00 Sunday morning..

At least the good thing about our mobile cameras is that it is the Police don't like joining you in court if you challenge the accuracy of the mobile system here in NZ.

The cosine of 22.5 is a very significant number. So is the (in)ability of a TCO's to correctly position their vehicle in relation to the roadway.

Unlikely.
Foolproof method of avoiding speeding tickets: Drive the to conditions and drive no faster than the speed limit for that road.
Its that simple.

Anyone speeding who gets snapped by a speed camera deserves to lose a few dollars for putting everyone elses lives at risk for the sake of shaving a few minutes off their travel time.

Don't like the current rules? Buy a politician or two... thats what the music/movie industry does.

We do need a change in public attitude to speed limits,  speed limits are just that "LIMITS".

Recently I stopped for fuel (travelling Nelson to Christchurch) and had a driver pull in to the service station just so he could abuse me for travelling at less than the speed limit. 

I'd been travelling at around 90 km/h in 100 km/h zones simply because the winds were so strong I could not safely ride at a higher speed, indeed even at 90 km/h I was having major problems controlling my bike.

Being well aware that I was riding a speed less than many other road users might wish to travel at,  I was pulling over frequently when it was safe to do so, to allow traffic to pass me.

Speed & traffic light cameras in Australia have reduced speeding and red-light accidents,  although a lot of the cameras that you see do not actually work,  believe it or not in NSW there are still a lot of these cameras that use conventional film !!

Wise words, kiwiscoota.

I'm also one of these annoying drivers who won't break the speed limit and will often drive to the conditions, rather than push my luck.

I'd rather get to point B from point A in one piece rather than risking my life (and my passengers or other road users) because I want to go faster.

"Motorist Colin Gant from Suffolk has been forced to seek counselling to help cure a bizarre phobia of speed cameras. Gant has suffered from the problem for four years, despite never being caught by one. He drives 800km a week and takes huge detours to avoid camera sites. If he sees a speed camera he suffers a panic attack and has to pull over. Gant, 41, said: "Every time I drove past one I started worrying about what would happen if I was caught speeding: would I lose my job? How would it affect my family? ... I realised I could allow it to control me and had to something about it."
(Source: telegraph.co.uk)"
Source: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=10559784

Perhaps speed cameras should be outlawed? haha. While I deny being brainwashed by police adverts I will admit I have an ever burning desire to eat fast food, watch dancing with the stars oh and join the navy...

And to this day I have never been stopped by the police or have gotten a ticket for anything. Drive to the conditions, I have my little spurts of controlled fun occasionally but don't go hurtling through red lights and screaming through suburbs like half these morons.

Just a couple of days snapping morons screaming right through red lights.