A member of the Road Policing team has received international acknowledgment for analytical work conducted on the impact of the ‘Speed Kills Kids’ campaign.

Fadi receives his award from Associate Professor Barry Watson, Director of the Centre for Accident Research and Road Safety Queensland, Australia. Photo: Kate Redford,CARRS-Q

Fadi Antoun: Strategic Performance Analyst at PNHQ won the Best Practitioner Paper Award at the Australasian College of Road Safety and The Travel Safe Committee of the Queensland Parliament national conference held in Brisbane in September for his presentation.

Fadi’s work considered the impact of the campaign on speeding within a 250 metre range of school boundaries throughout New Zealand.

Using police data on infringement notices for speeding issued by officers as well as speed camera data and comparing it to information on crashes resulting in death or serious injury supplied by the Ministry of Transport, Fadi was able to evaluate the impact of the campaign since it started in 2006.

Fadi’s work showed there has been a 25 percent reduction in the median number of infringement notices issued by speed cameras per hour from the start of the campaign in February 2006 to May 2008. The median number of notices issued per hour in 2006 was 32 which reduced to 24 in 2008.

Fatalities and injuries to pedestrians and cyclists have also declined over this period, confirming a direct correlation between speed and injury.

“Not surprisingly my research showed that the greatest impact on speed reduction comes where constables are deployed near schools,” says Fadi.

“Local speed enforcement campaigns really work.

“Issuing notices is clearly saving the lives of our children and we should make no apology for that.”