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Victoria [AU] Police Trial Hi-Tech Traffic Cameras
Victoria police have been trialling high-tech cameras over the past year that scan number plates and aim to catch out the worst drivers.
The automated number plate recognition (ANPR) cameras take `snaps' of cars going past and feed the information into roads authority VicRoads' database, police deputy commissioner Ken Lay said.
"We then get the advice on whether the car is unregistered, the driver is unlicensed, suspended or disqualified," he told AAP.
"We want to get them off the road, those drivers are massively over-represented in fatalities and serious injuries.
"In 2008, out of 303 fatalities, 36 were unlicensed drivers and 400 were seriously injured.
"They should not have been on the road."
The cameras are widely used in Britain, where they have tracked violent criminals and unregistered drivers.
Liberty Victoria and the Australian Privacy Foundation oppose the cameras over concerns about widespread surveillance and tracking of ordinary citizens.
Mr Lay said he would take their concerns on board.
"Whenever you talk about cameras, there is a group of people who are concerned about privacy issues, but we are in preliminary discussions with the privacy commissioner," he said.
Mr Lay said the technology had worked well so far, scanning 316,526 plates and detecting 6,079 offences.
However, he conceded that if they were to make a dent in Victoria's road toll - which, with the 303 deaths, hit a record low last year - the force's traffic and transit division needed government backing to introduce many more than the three cameras currently being trialled.
"We will go to government and have that discussion about how many we need and how many there should be in police vehicles, booze buses, on the side of roads and in problem areas, because there are limited cameras," he said.
"We have to be smarter in how we do business to find more reductions in the road toll.
"The data will tell us which areas to target, where collisions and offending are occurring, sometimes it might be in the west of Melbourne, sometimes in the east."