Speeding council staff be warned: Big Brother may soon be watching

Christchurch City Council staff may soon be monitored if they break the speed limit in a work vehicle.

The city council’s fleet has the technology installed to detect when vehicles go too fast. But the data collected has never been accessed. 

City council head of facilities and property Bruce Rendall told The Star without further investigation he could not say why speed limit breaches were not recorded.

Rendall said the telematics technology required to record speed is installed in city council cars and could be switched on.

“However, this would require changes that are not justified due to the system being at the end of its practical life,” he said.

The current system will become obsolete when the 3G network it uses is progressively shut down by providers next year.

Starting from the second half of next year, Rendall said the city council is going to market for a new system and will consider whether to actively track speed limit violations when up-to-date technology is installed.

“Council officers are currently reviewing system requirements. Use of data for safety management purposes is one of the matters under consideration.”

The city council is alone in not monitoring speed among Greater Christchurch councils, with the others actively tracking speed limit breaches.

Selwyn and Waimakiriri district councils have processes in place to discipline repeat offenders, as does Environment Canterbury.

Former ECan chair Peter Scott resigned in September following revelations he had exceeded the speed limit more than 1000 times in his ECan-owned car.

Data from the city council’s telematics system is only used to see how cars are being utilised, for staff and vehicle security, and for internal investigations. 

To date, the system has not been used to track driver behaviour.

However, speeding tickets received by city council staff and elected members are tracked.

No elected members were recorded receiving speeding tickets in council cars from January 2021 to this September in data released under the Official Information Act.

There were 38 speeding tickets issued to council staff with the highest being 16km more than the speed limit.

The car was going 66km/h in the 50km/h zone on Bealey Ave in April last year.

Most other tickets were issued for breaches between 5-10km/h more than the speed limit.

Mayor Phil Mauger does not drive a council car, instead preferring his own Hyundai Ioniq electric car. He does not claim mileage.

Mauger made headlines when he bought a hydrogen-powered Hyundai Nexo in December 2021 while running for the mayoralty.

He cannot drive it as he does not currently have access to a hydrogen source.