The Transport Agency expects new speed cameras to triple the number of drivers caught, increasing from 1 million to 3 million offences a year.
It could have ramped things up still further but has pulled back from the "saturation" of the roads with speed cameras, even though it calculated this extreme approach would save the most lives.
The cameras are already being tested in Auckland and have snapped 50,000 offences, of drivers using their phone or seatbelts not on.
The torpedoing of what Waka Kotahi called the "Big Bang expansion" is revealed in a business case released to RNZ under the OIA.
It looked at six camera options for "increased certainty of detection", to run alongside "more severe penalties, and faster processing of penalties".
The most extreme approach to "treat all corridors across the country with safety cameras" would have saved 2200-3400 lives over 20 years, hundreds more than the recommended option (1500-2400 lives).
"Maximum investment, saturation of network with cameras with all technology turned on and business intelligence driven in real-time," the report said.
This approach would have transferred all the existing speed cameras from police to the New Zealand Transport Agency and expanded the network "at the same time in the same year".
But it was too hard and costly to build and risked alienating people, the report to the board in March warned.
It "creates an eroding effect on social licence with the public by saturating the network with cameras ... in less than 10 years."
It is instead going for a more gradual approach that will nevertheless add "a lot of new cameras per year", though the actual numbers are blanked out.
Under this somewhat less toll-cutting approach, much more ticketing will still go on.
Waka Kotahi summarised the "desired future state" of "safety cameras", saying: "The number of infringements initially rises significantly (estimated at three times current volumes), but eventually reduces as compliance increases."
The current volume was 1 million infringements a year.
The increase will be in part down to law changes which will allow camera footage to be used against drivers using cellphones or vehicle occupants not wearing seatbelts.
Speed, ironically, was to the fore.
The government wanted the transport agency to hurry up, and, according to NZTA documents, the expanded network was already being built; the documents said: "Building and testing happen in the same stage" from April 2022.
"In response to the [transport] minister's request to accelerate this work" the NZTA board in April opted not to wait for the detailed business case due in September, but to order 26 new cameras to avoid Covid supply chain delays, and nominate Spanish giant SICE to provide the camera back-office system.
These 26 were for speed and red-light running detection only, NZTA told RNZ today.
The others that are being tested in Auckland to spot mobile phone or seatbelt use are different, from Australian supplier Acusensus, which introduced them in NSW in 2019.
A timeline shows camera tests going on all this year.
