Waikato police issue record number of tickets, more than any other region in the country

Sunday, 9 August 2020

Waikato road policing manager Inspector Jeff Penno says if people are speeding in Waikato, they can expect a ticket.

Waikato police have issued thousands more speeding tickets than any another other district in the country this year.

And the region's top cop makes no apologies for the crackdown.

“We enforce speed to save lives, end of story,” road policing manager Inspector Jeff Penno told Stuff.

Data released by the New Zealand Police showed that 14,000 officer-issued speeding tickets were issued in the first three months of 2020 in the Waikato region – up from the 8000 they issued during the same period in 2019.

The next closest region in 2020 was Canterbury, which handed out 9300 officer-issued speeding tickets.

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For the first three months of 2020, $1,420,110 of fines had been collected for officer-issued speeding tickets, compared with $1,049,770 for the same time period in 2019.

Penno told Stuff he was aware of the significant increase this year and said May was a particularly busy month due to an operation targeting speeding.

He said officers issued more tickets than they ever have over a monthly period during May, though he declined to divulge the exact number handed out.

The operation ran as they tried to front-foot the trauma that could have occurred as traffic increased on the roads again post lockdown.

“We are being really rigid on offences people have a choice in,” he said.

“You can choose not to wear a seatbelt, you can choose if you use your phone and if you speed [or] drive impaired.”

There have been 24 deaths on Waikato roads in 2020, which is the exact same number for the same time period in 2019.

The fact the figures were the same, despite the lockdown restrictions, was “gut-wrenching”, Penno said.

“We take every crash we go to personally because if we are responding, we have got it wrong, we failed to keep the public safe.”

Out of those fatal crashes, five were in 70kmh zones, with the other 19 occurring in speed zones of 80kmh or above.

If they kept their enforcement levels up they would see a reduction in injuries and deaths on the road, Penno said.

But the crackdown hasn’t been limited to May, with Penno saying Waikato police had increased their focus and enforcement on speed generally.

It was a move he signalled he was going to make when he took over the role about eight months ago.

“Speeding is so, so critical in road trauma. We know that a third of vehicle crashes don’t happen through a criminal act, people make mistakes.

“There’s no speed tolerance.

“If you speed, you will be stopped and you will be issued a notice.”

For the first three months of 2020, $1,420,110 of fines had been collected for officer-issued speeding tickets, compared with $1,049,770 for the same time period in 2019.

But Penno thought it was “disgusting” that anyone would think they were issuing tickets for money.

“The New Zealand police get zero dollars from our enforcement and, in fact, it costs us to process the notice. I find that argument disgusting and those people need to look at themselves.”

Since Covid-19 Penno said they had also seen an increase in alcohol being a factor in crashes and the number of drink-drivers being caught was increasing, with the levels recorded also increasing.

“Before Covid it was [decreasing] as we were doing a lot of breath testing.”

Their booze buses were now back to business as usual and Penno said people could expect to see them.