Speed cameras are an unavoidable fixture of the modern urban streetscape.

They’ve multiplied on the back of one simple mantra: speed kills.

It should follow then that speed cameras save lives.

Yet each year, hundreds of lives in NSW are snatched away in a cloud of screeching tyres and smoke.

The reality is, the inexorable growth of speed cameras is doing little to arrest that tragic waste of life.

When Saab introduced seatbelts in the late 50s, it marked a pivotal moment in road safety.

Since then, motor vehicles have become safer as technology has advanced.

And while that has seen less lives lost on the road, serious accident rates continue to climb.

Speed cameras are clearly part of the enforcement puzzle.

But they too often fail to target accident blackspots.

The ubiquitous speed camera on Kincaid Street is little more than a sneaky revenue raising tool.

Plonked in the middle of a wide, straight stretch of 50km/h road, the camera ripped nearly $50,000 out of local wallets in the 2014/15 financial year.

Wagga’s other greediest speed camera, on Docker Street, generated even more in the same period.

Does anyone seriously think either camera prevented a single serious accident? Of course not.

These two cameras are money making, not life saving.

And yet, muzzled by political correctness, few would dare publicly question the validity of their existence.

It should be incumbent on authorities to place the cameras only in proven blackspots, rather than in “safe speeding” spots.

Ask yourself this: when was the last time you drove past a speed camera?

When was the last time you were breathtested?

If authorities were serious about making the roads safer, there would be as many roadside breathtests and drug tests as there are cameras.

But of course, breathtests cost the government money, speed cameras earn it.