Article: FF's Ryan lashes out at penalty points system

Seth Brundle

From sunday business post
[about time someone said it!]

By Sean Mac Carthaigh, Political Correspondent

A senior Fianna Fail TD has launched a stinging attack on the way penalty points are being imposed.

Eoin Ryan claims that gardai are preying on motor ists along safe stretches of road while genuinely dangerous driving goes unpunished.

The comments by the head of the Oireachtas Committee on Transport reflect growing evidence that the system has failed in its aim to reduce road deaths. Many now feel that penalty points have no effect other than to generate income and punish motorists.

So far this year, 110 people have died on roads in the Republic, compared with 85 deaths this time last year.

Ryan has summoned senior officials from the Department of Justice, Department of Transport and the National Roads Authority (NRA) before his committee this Wednesday.

"We are going to be asking them what exactly is going on," Ryan said. "This is a matter of life and death.

"Any detection that I can see seems to be happening on our motorways. Well, accidents are not happening on motorways, they are happening on secondary roads. How many speed guns are being used on secondary roads? There aren't any. They are out on the Stillorgan dual carriageway or up on the Belfield bridge."

The latest statistics from the NRA show that just 3 per cent of fatal accidents happen on dual carriageways or motorways. They also reveal that in 80 per cent of two-car accidents, excessive speed is not a factor.

This indicates that the overwhelming focus on speed in the penalty points system may represent a massive waste of resources.

Seth Brundle

Just to back up Mr. Ryan's POV.
The Gardai used to park the Gatso van on the N4 around liffey valley / Lucan bypass area quite a lot.
hadn't seen them for a while but last week I pased them a number of times parked on the grass verge beside woodies facing cars heading into town during the rush hour.
If this is not a waste of garda resources, the I don't know what is!

bop1977

finally a politician with a brain. just wonder will they take the fixeed place cameras off the m/ways as well as the cops????

spockety

You can hardly argue that fixed speed camera's are a waste of resources.

If you're saying this purely from the point of view of wanting to get away with speeding, then it's not much of an argument either. The speed limit is 70 on motorways, and if you go faster than that, you're breaking the law. If you get caught going faster than that, and you are fined, then you can have nothing to complain about. You know the limit, and you know that breaking it brings fines. If you don't like the speed limit being 70, then petition your local politicians to raise the issue in the Dail, or run for the Dail yourself in order to get the issue raised.

mike65

I think the issue is safety first. Sticking Gastos on a motorway is a waste of clearly very limited resources.

Apprently the idea of a traffic corps is not dead as had been reported but is in a lay-by due to fuss and bother about whether it should be manned by gards or civilians in uniforms.

Mike.

bop1977

Originally posted by spockety
You can hardly argue that fixed speed camera's are a waste of resources.

If you're saying this purely from the point of view of wanting to get away with speeding, then it's not much of an argument either. The speed limit is 70 on motorways, and if you go faster than that, you're breaking the law. If you get caught going faster than that, and you are fined, then you can have nothing to complain about. You know the limit, and you know that breaking it brings fines. If you don't like the speed limit being 70, then petition your local politicians to raise the issue in the Dail, or run for the Dail yourself in order to get the issue raised.

people see the lines on the road and slow down because they dont want a fine and penalty points why not use this to good effect on a secondary road at accident black spots and mabye reduce the road death figure instead of increasing the excheckers income figures because dont forget 97% of all road deaths occur on secondary roads and i have yet to see a single camera on a secondary road.

waste of resources i think so. also i think 70mph is fine on a motorway i dont have a problem with that speed limit. my problem is 2 fold:

1st dual carrigeways with inappropriatily low limits (ie the n4 at lucan come on 40mph its a joke and a disgrace)

and 2nd overpolicing of the motorways/dual carrige especially around the areas where the limits are set to low for the road (ie the n4 again @ lucan in both directions upto and coming back from the M50 roundabout, also the n4 has a speed camera at the Spa Hotel east bound towards Dublin just as you come off the M4)

BrianD3

the n4 at lucan come on 40mph its a joke and a disgrace

Eh, no...40 mph is spot on for that road which is very dangerous and badly planned. Eg the Texaco garage is in an appalling location for road safety plus there's also a golf club, a median crossing and various other turnoffs and complications in the area.

The limit is 40 and most drivers seem to travel at around 45-55 mph. This is bad enough, but if the limit were 60 mph, drivers would be going at 65-70 which would result in carnage and multiple fatalities on that road every week of the year.

BrianD3

bop1977

what about the over policing given the very low rate of death on these roads. 3% of deaths on these roads doesnt justify the police presents or the gatso's.

imo the cops dont care about road safety they use penalty point figures to cover up there half a$$ed approch otherwise we would see more of them on secondary roads.
also on penalty points i would love to get a breakdown of how many were issued on a motorway or dual carriage way and secondary roads and times during the day when these tickets were issued then compare against when and where road deaths occured, i wounder if 97% of tickets would be issued on secondary roads? i strongly think not and would be surprised if even 10% were issued on secondary roads.