Stealth Speed Camera Van

TheDude87

This morning i was travelling to work, up a steep hill with an overtaking taking lane after coming off a roundabout.

I had just passed out a lorry, seen the speed camera van sitting on the side of the road with no lights on and a little red light flashes! Looked at my clock and i was just about to reach 65mph!

Bear in mind this was at 7.45 am on a winters morning and it was pitch black outside! Is this not illegal and highly dangerous?!

deadlast

What happens when you reach 65mph, do you become invisible?

Atomic Pineapple

Was the speed limit 100km/h?

Getting done for 4.8km/h over the limit is harsh! Especially when you take into account you were probably actually only doing around 60/61 mph taking into account your speedometer's inaccuracy and likely to be not even breaking a 100km/h speed limit.

Of course all of the above is useless info if the limit was lower or if you were actually traveling at more than 65mph.

TheDude87

haha no, i added that before people start going on about 'excessive' speed and that i deserved it, when in actual fact i was passing out a slow moving vehicle up a bray so i went about 3 km/h over the limit!

Invisible? No, you're thinking of 89 mph!!

TheDude87

draffodx wrote: »

Was the speed limit 100km/h?

Getting done for 4.8km/h over the limit is harsh! Especially when you take into account you were probably actually only doing around 60/61 mph taking into account your speedometer's inaccuracy and likely to be not even breaking a 100km/h speed limit.

Of course all of the above is useless info if the limit was lower or if you were actually traveling at more than 65mph.

Yeah, limit was 100! The instance i looked at the speed / seen the van, i was doing 63/64 maybe but like you say thats most likely inaccurate, espcially because it's a '96 Corolla

Anan1

TheDude87 wrote: »

I had just passed out a lorry, seen the speed camera van sitting on the side of the road with no lights on and a little red light flashes! Looked at my clock and i was just about to reach 65mph!

What makes you so sure that the little red light = a ticket?

TheDude87

Anan1 wrote: »

What makes you so sure that the little red light = a ticket?

A camera taking a picture usually does that, yes?

Anyway, the point is, it was dark out and this was parked on the hard shoulder with no lights on!!

Atomic Pineapple

TheDude87 wrote: »

A camera taking a picture usually does that, yes?

Anyway, the point is, it was dark out and this was parked on the hard shoulder with no lights on!!

If it was dark the infra red may have been used to simply check your speed, not capture your picture. Was the van sticker-ed up with speed camera signs?

If it was on the hard shoulder out of harms way I dont see the issue?

Paulw

TheDude87 wrote: »

Anyway, the point is, it was dark out and this was parked on the hard shoulder with no lights on!!

So? Is there a legal obligation for them to have their lights on?

Your issue is just about them not having their lights on, but it's not due to the fact that they may have caught you speeding?

neilthefunkeone

TheDude87 wrote: »

A camera taking a picture usually does that, yes?

Anyway, the point is, it was dark out and this was parked on the hard shoulder with no lights on!!

But if it was that dark then it prob would have needed to fire the flash?? Arent these vans covered in higlighted stickers and marking.. so if you had your lights on it would have reflected from way back!!

But yeah suppose sidelight at least could have been on..

Anan1

TheDude87 wrote: »

A camera taking a picture usually does that, yes?

AFAIK the red light on a camera is usually for focusing.

TheDude87

I'm assuming the camera they were using doesn't need a flash! Not sure but i'd say they're not allowed to have a flash so as to disorientate the driver. The camera was facing me so it would have been quite dazzling in that level of darkness!

TheDude87

draffodx wrote: »

If it was dark the infra red may have been used to simply check your speed, not capture your picture. Was the van sticker-ed up with speed camera signs?

If it was on the hard shoulder out of harms way I dont see the issue?

Hard shoulder on a very busy dual carriageway in the dark, like one of the other guys said, sidelights at least! Common sense

neilthefunkeone

Not sure about the new ones but the Garda one def has a flash.. Gatso's have flashes...

They are not operating some new type of magic camera that can take pictures of moving objects at 65mph in pitch darkness with lights shining in the lens!!!
But i could be wrong!

Anan1

TheDude87 wrote: »

I'm assuming the camera they were using doesn't need a flash! Not sure but i'd say they're not allowed to have a flash so as to disorientate the driver. The camera was facing me so it would have been quite dazzling in that level of darkness!

Exactly, you're assuming. Chill out, you might not have a ticket at all.;)

bladespin

It's illegal to park in the hard shoulder, two things spring to mind:

They should be reported to the gardai - what action they take is up to them but at least make the report.

Not sure any evidence from an illegal activity can be used, that gardai are exempt from the road traffic act, the vans are not.

TheDude87

Paulw wrote: »

So? Is there a legal obligation for them to have their lights on?

Your issue is just about them not having their lights on, but it's not due to the fact that they may have caught you speeding?

Read my first post, my issue isn't with the speeding, if i'm caught, i'm caught, fair enough.

My point, and question, was about the fact that a garda van promoting road safety had no lights on whilst it was speed-checking on the hard shoulder of a busy dual carriageway...

Bearcat

Watch out on the rock rd blackrock, co.dublin inbound towards the city just past blackrock college.......antics now in the pitch black of dark are two gardai hiding in a bus shelter catching anyone over 50kph and dare you put a tyre into the bus lane.........I dont have an issue with their monitoring traffic, but behaving like school kids bursting out laughing as they pull in a few old dears etc is disgusting. I was on my bike and just stopped up from them to watch their play acting......grow up fellas and monitor traffic in known dangerous spots. Likewise they jump out to stop traffic with a torch and yellow jacket with no adjacent lighting......some one is just going to plough through one of them.

I hope one of the corp are reading this and tap the buckos on the shoulder to remind them their antics are childish.

Anan1

Bearcat wrote: »

Watch out on the rock rd blackrock, co.dublin inbound towards the city just past blackrock college.......antics now in the pitch black of dark are two gardai hiding in a bus shelter catching anyone over 50kph and dare you put a tyre into the bus lane.........I dont have an issue with their monitoring traffic, but behaving like school kids bursting out laughing as they pull in a few old dears etc is disgusting. I was on my bike and just stopped up from them to watch their play acting......grow up fellas and monitor traffic in known dangerous spots. Likewise they jump out to stop traffic with a torch and yellow jacket with no adjacent lighting......some one is just going to plough through one of them.

I hope one of the corp are reading this and tap the buckos on the shoulder to remind them their antics are childish.

They're there quite regularly. Are you upset because they're catching people in the bus lane, or because you think they're laughing at the old people that they catch?

ThisRegard

Bearcat wrote: »

monitor traffic in known dangerous spots.

So just beside a school is not a reasonable spot ?

Bearcat wrote: »

Likewise they jump out to stop traffic with a torch and yellow jacket with no adjacent lighting

It's ok if they have their caps on.

Seth Brundle

TheDude87 wrote: »

This morning i was travelling to work, up a steep hill with an overtaking taking lane after coming off a roundabout.

I had just passed out a lorry, seen the speed camera van sitting on the side of the road with no lights on and a little red light flashes! Looked at my clock and i was just about to reach 65mph!

Bear in mind this was at 7.45 am on a winters morning and it was pitch black outside! Is this not illegal and highly dangerous?!

1. 100 km/h = 62 mph and your speedo was presumably overreading (you were doing less than 65mph).
2. Had you no headlamps?
3. If they were parked in a dangerous position, would you have been able to stop should you have had to? Remember the school of thought about driving within your line of sight?
4. What if it were a broken down car with lets say a battery fault? What should happen then?

TheDude87

kbannon wrote: »

1. 100 km/h = 62 mph and your speedo was presumably overreading (you were doing less than 65mph).
2. Had you no headlamps?
3. If they were parked in a dangerous position, would you have been able to stop should you have had to? Remember the school of thought about driving within your line of sight?
4. What if it were a broken down car with lets say a battery fault? What should happen then?

1. Yes that was pointed out already
2. Yes i did, i was in the overtaking lane and after over-taking an articulated lorry so my lights were not shining next nor near the van.
3. It was dangerous to me no, but that's not to say they shouldn't have had their parking lights on!
4. Broken down car with a dead battery? Fine, but it wasn't, it was a Garda van promoting road safety etc etc.

Bearcat

Anan1 wrote: »

They're there quite regularly. Are you upset because they're catching people in the bus lane, or because you think they're laughing at the old people that they catch?

you got was I was saying wrong........I don't have an issue with them doing their job, but jumping out of bus shelters in the pitch dark is childish and they'll end up in vincents on a slab as some one won't see them. i also didnt find the funny side of of what they deemed a giggling event. another poster mentioned their motive is because of a school so close.......I didnt see any students at 21.30hrs that night. I'm sticking to my guns folks on this one, their antics were childish jumping out on traffic. Anyone see the gardai patrolling the M50 where appalling driving took place in the snow??? NO

ThisRegard

Bearcat wrote: »

their motive is because of a school so close.......I didnt see any students at 21.30hrs that night.

Schools around there have boarders so there's always students around. And do you think it's acceptable to break the limit when you think it's ok to do so ?

What's the point in just checking speeds during regular school hours ? People will become aware of this, adhere to the limit during these hours and speed every other time. Whereas if the check is there at random times people will tend to adhere to the limit at all times as they won't know when the check is there or not. This will save the vans and checks being in the same place all the time.

Uriel.

ThisRegard wrote: »

Schools around there have boarders so there's always students around. And do you think it's acceptable to break the limit when you think it's ok to do so ?

What's the point in just checking speeds during regular school hours ? People will become aware of this, adhere to the limit during these hours and speed every other time. Whereas if the check is there at random times people will tend to adhere to the limit at all times as they won't know when the check is there or not. This will save the vans and checks being in the same place all the time.

You obviously have some problem either reading or understanding English.

The poster did not say there was anything wrong with them carrying out speed checks.

He/She clearly said that he/she didn't like their (perceived) dangerous method of jumping out from behind a visual barrier to stop on coming vehicles. He/she expressed their unhappiness at the attitude the Gardai in question were taking towards their job - e.g. laughing at people who have been stopped.

Anan1

Uriel. wrote: »

He/she expressed their unhappiness at the attitude the Gardai in question were taking towards their job - e.g. laughing at people who have been stopped.

I'd be interested to know how Bearcat knows for sure what the Gardaí were laughing at. Might they simply have been chatting while they worked?

Bearcat

Anan, I was on my friggin bike at the time and passed the gardai on the way into town. I thought I heard laughs so I pulled in a bit further down the road to see and walked back with bike on foothpath so see what was going on.

I repeat and repeat for the last time, these guardians and protectors of the peace have a job to do and so be it.......the manner of night time antics of coming out on the road in the pitch black and it is a badly lit area imho is (a) dangerous to the gardai and (b) drivers that may not have eagle night time vision.....

Right.......... back to my cave, I'm just not sold on pitch dark checks re the safety issue....forget about the jokes and crack, we are all entitled to a bit of humour.

Joe10000

I have a 2008 car and the sat nav always has my speed about 4 kmph slower then the speedo so I would guess that most cars driving at the limit (according to their speedo) would in fact be under.

Del2005

bladespin wrote: »

It's illegal to park in the hard shoulder, two things spring to mind:

They should be reported to the gardai - what action they take is up to them but at least make the report.

Not sure any evidence from an illegal activity can be used, that gardai are exempt from the road traffic act, the vans are not.

It's only illegal to park on the hard shoulder of a motorway not a DC.

bmw535d

the van used in Inishowen is just a plain red van, no markings, no reflective signs, no road side signs, sits in dark unlit spots not 2 foot off the road, very dangerous imo.

johnos1984

neilthefunkeone wrote: »

But if it was that dark then it prob would have needed to fire the flash?? Arent these vans covered in higlighted stickers and marking.. so if you had your lights on it would have reflected from way back!!

I've passed them in the dark and those strips are NOT reflective as far as I could tell

Seth Brundle

I think people are missing the point. The OP was complaining about the gardai parking on a HS despite the fact that the OP said they were not in a dangerous position.
Were it a brokoen down car or somethign else, people would not moan. This thread is just to complain about the gardai carrying out a speed check and appears to be gripping at straws in terms of finding a reason to disagree with it.

Bearcat

ok Fellas & Ladies , I think we are all going around in circles, we all beg to differ, let's move on......there's bigger fish to fry like why the hell is biffo still in power?

mikedragon32

Bearcat wrote: »

Anyone see the gardai patrolling the M50 where appalling driving took place in the snow??? NO

Off topic, but yes I did. Can't remember which evening, but it was Christmas week. Gardaí on the M50 pulled a car over that was doing 20kmph on a surface that was gritted. The car was straddling both lanes and preventing anyone passing (the hard shoulder and median were both covered in snow, but the lanes were clear of snow).

challengemaster

TheDude87 wrote: »

I'm assuming the camera they were using doesn't need a flash! Not sure but i'd say they're not allowed to have a flash so as to disorientate the driver. The camera was facing me so it would have been quite dazzling in that level of darkness!

/photographer mode/

Only way a still camera is going to get a sharp picture of a moving object is by firing off a flash. If you think of exposing some old film to light, it literally burns an image onto the film, producing a picture. Same thing applies to current technology/cameras. A flash just provides light which then "burns in" the image seen when the flash goes off. So while there may be some ghosting/blurring from the movement of the car, there will be a crisp image from when the flash went off. Otherwise, you'd just have a blurry image of a car, with no clear reg plate.

pegasus1

challengemaster wrote: »

/photographer mode/

Only way a still camera is going to get a sharp picture of a moving object is by firing off a flash. If you think of exposing some old film to light, it literally burns an image onto the film, producing a picture. Same thing applies to current technology/cameras. A flash just provides light which then "burns in" the image seen when the flash goes off. So while there may be some ghosting/blurring from the movement of the car, there will be a crisp image from when the flash went off. Otherwise, you'd just have a blurry image of a car, with no clear reg plate.

do their camera's not also work in the infra-red range..hence not needing a white light flash, just an infra-red one which you wouldn't see..

S Line

I passed one over the crimbo; luckily the ejit in the fiat seicento had me held back at 60 (in a 100 zone) so no ticket, nice one!!

I was a little annoyed thought. The van itself was in a grave jard car park just at the side of the road. It had the hi-vis markings but to all intents and purposes it looked parked up – as opposed to being active, I assumed there would have been amber beacons to alert road users

If you speed and get caught fair enough but in all the media lead up to these vans being released the RSA made a big deal out of the fact that there were supposed to be speed reducing devices and would be hi-vis to make people slow down to improve road safety.

If they are just parked up at the side on the road and they just look like parked mini buses – they are just stealth revenue generating machines and not an enhancement to road safety

Also the one I saw was a red Renault Master and not the white Transit that the ad suggested they would be

Seth Brundle

S Line wrote: »

I was a little annoyed thought. The van itself was in a grave jard car park just at the side of the road. It had the hi-vis markings but to all intents and purposes it looked parked up – as opposed to being active, I assumed there would have been amber beacons to alert road users

You really thought they would have flashing orange beacons? Are you for real?

Just remember that the private speed detection vans in this campaign are tarted in the fancy stickers are quite visible compared to the Gardai's ones which are just white with no stickers!

What about the unmarked mobile patrols - should these have their blue lights flashing when going around also?

S Line wrote: »

If you speed and get caught fair enough but in all the media lead up to these vans being released the RSA made a big deal out of the fact that there were supposed to be speed reducing devices and would be hi-vis to make people slow down to improve road safety.

Have you slowed down or become more aware of what is around you now?

S Line wrote: »

If they are just parked up at the side on the road and they just look like parked mini buses – they are just stealth revenue generating machines and not an enhancement to road safety

But you saw it so how was it using stealth?

S Line wrote: »

Also the one I saw was a red Renault Master and not the white Transit that the ad suggested they would be

OMG, then you have the right of appeal! :rolleyes:

S Line

Just to restate my original opinion


speeding is aginsed the law - if you get caught, tought luck - pay the fine and take your points - you broke the law


my basic point still stands


The RSA/Garda campain regarding these vans was that they were a DETERANT designed to get drivers attenetion and to get them to slow down. This would be a change to the traditional low-vis fixed cameras or the traffic corp. Garda HIDING, trying to CATCH speederes with the radar gun.


My limited experinece with the new system would suggest its not the big ovbious deterant that the authorities said it would be but more like a traditional speed catching system


I know it sounds nieve when i say I thought they should have flashing beacons - I know it sounds like wishfull tinking but I am basing this expectation on the assertation of the RSA/Garda that these vans are supposed to be ovbious enough to make you slow down.


These vans are not 'tarted in fancy stickers', at a glance they are not that ovbious, they are quite plain and require a double take .


The traditional Garda white vans with no stickers and unmarked patrols are supposed to be traps to catch speeding - so they dont need to have blue flashing lights - they are not claiming to be deterants.


I'm no saint when it comes to speed limit - I'm no boy racer either - I have been more consious of speed since points came out


I did see it so i guess you could say its 'stelth' ness failed - doesent change the fact that it was very low-vis.


Who wants the right of appeal ?? if you get caught - tough !! The ad's suggests white Transits not red Renaults. The vehicle brand doesent matter, the add suggests white vans similar in style to Garda vehicles - that was not what i encountered.


Once again I'm not trying to justify speeding - I just wish it was more
honest - thats all


Insead of 'We are trying to help you and make you slow down by being so apparent and ovbious'

It sould be 'Ok people the traps are out and we want to catch you speeding, you have been warned'