A speed camera on Wainuiomata hill that wears the scars of its second shooting.

A Wainuiomata speed camera may be the most hated in the country, attacked by everything from angle grinder to firearms as locals revolt against perceived unfair treatment.

In the latest incident, the camera at the top of Wainuiomata hill was left with several cracks after it was shot for the second time.

Long-time Wainuiomata resident Mark Sharp said speed cameras were a "sensitive topic" in the suburb after the hilltop camera was resurrected in December.

There were three cameras in the space of a few kilometres on the road leading into the Lower Hutt suburb, Sharp said: one on each side of the hill, and one at its top.

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The camera was originally placed at the top of the hill around the same time as one was installed near the old Griffin's factory on Wainuiomata Rd in September 2014, he said.



"I think some guy went up there with an angle grinder and ground the camera off."

It was replaced in the past few weeks by a new speed camera – along with a security camera to monitor attacks on it.

Last week, Sharp noticed the box holding the security camera had been opened in an attack on its contents, and then it was shot.

Having three cameras on the road into the suburb was like a red rag to a bull for a community like Wainuiomata, he said.

He accepted the shooting was taking things to extremes, but the camera's isolated location and community dissatisfaction made it a likely target.

Hutt South MP Trevor Mallard said he had little doubt the cameras were positioned "more with a view to revenue than safety".

This, he said, was especially the case with the camera near the Griffin's factory at the base of the hill.

Mallard said he could understand how people got to the point of vandalism through frustration, "but you cannot condone it".



He said the accidents on the hill tended to occur on bends where there were no cameras, particularly on the Wainuiomata side. "In my view the placement's just stupid."

Superintendent Steve Greally said police were alerted to the shooting on December 24.

"It looks like maybe a small-calibre rifle, and it's the second time a firearm has been used on that particular camera since the poles been erected."

He said the camera location was about road safety, not revenue gathering, and the cameras were placed around the country according to speed-related crash risks.

People on Wainuiomata Rd needed to slow down and be more careful in dealing with what was a potentially dangerous stretch of road.

"The greatest cost to New Zealand when someone dies on the road, forget the money, it's to the family, the people you love in your family, your friends.

"A lot of people think it's revenue gathering. I've never met a cop yet who, when they pull someone over to issue a ticket, rubs their hands in glee."

Many people did not realise that CCTV was installed around the cameras, Greally said, and the investigation had been handed to Wellington CIB, which would make sure the shooter was "held to account".

"Whether you agree with the fact that a camera's there or not, you don't take a gun and try and destroy it. That's barbaric, and it's incredibly violent behaviour, and somebody's clearly out of control."

Speed camera angst

Wellington police installed the hilltop speed camera and one at the foot of the hill on Wainuiomata Rd as part of a $10 million network upgrade that would see 56 digital speed cameras put in around the country.

In the decade before it was installed, there were 168 speed-related crashes on Wainuiomata Rd, including one fatal crash and 53 injury crashes, seven of them serious.