Go safe vans - revenue raiser or life saver

PFL

So in the last few weeks I've noticed a dramatic increase in the amount of Go safe vans on the side of the roads. In all cases they are located in sneaky spots tucked in off the road and all in 50km speed zones.

My issue is the vans are supposed to be in areas where frequent accidents occur but from my observations they're located in ideal locations to nab drivers coming from 100km zone to 50km zones, with the increase in points to three per offence, four strikes in three years and you're out.... opinions....

The_Valeyard

Either way, I really hate the bast*rds!

Dr Turk Turkelton

Complete money spinner. I always flash oncoming traffic to warn them of these parasites.
If they at least pretended to put them in dangerous areas I could come around to believing they are for safety but in their current guise it is all about the money.

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

Like them or loathe them it is neither revenue collection nor life saving. It is enforcing the law.

kneemos

I've noticed people have begun flashing again,something I haven't seen in many years.

magick

Pure money spinners

byhookorbycrook

Revenue raisers. One parked on the Wexford road out of Carlow, just before the speed limit sign. Shooting fish in a barrel.

My name is URL

Leanna Prickly Maiden wrote: »

Like them or loathe them it is neither revenue collection nor life saving. It is enforcing the law.

Not very effectively. Cameras not set up properly, no reps turning up to court meaning cases are thrown out

And!

Wabbit Ears

Heard on the radio there was some figures that the number of road deaths is actually steadily increasing again with 2012 being a really good year, Does this prove the sceptic right that its little more than a money spinner and no real deterrent or driver behaviour adjuster?

Jan-December 2013 there were 181 fatal collision according to RSA
2014 Rose to 196

Dr Turk Turkelton

Wabbit Ears wrote: »

Heard on the radio there was some figures that the number of road deaths is actually steadily increasing again with 2012 being a really good year, Does this prove the sceptic right that its little more than a money spinner and no real deterrent or driver behaviour adjuster?

Jan-December 2013 there were 181 fatal collision according to RSA
2014 Rose to 196

I have always thought that the drop in road deaths was due to fewer cars on the road due to the recession.
The roads not chock full just before dawn and just after dusk surely must have had some impact.
Also not as much "pleasure" driving at the weekends.
I'd imagine if the economy takes off again we will see a sharp rise in road deaths.

Banjo String

Pile of ****, money spinner and nothing else. I give you the one that's always on the N4 for example, just after Liffey Valley heading towards Galway.

One of the benefits of holding a northern license however.......

PFL

Wabbit Ears wrote: »

Heard on the radio there was some figures that the number of road deaths is actually steadily increasing again with 2012 being a really good year, Does this prove the sceptic right that its little more than a money spinner and no real deterrent or driver behaviour adjuster?

Jan-December 2013 there were 181 fatal collision according to RSA
2014 Rose to 196

I heard the same report, I'm all for enforcing the law especially in locations where speed was a factor in the crash, the other morning I was heading off for work passing through a rural town at 5-30am. Lo and behold tucked off the road the go safe van.

This area is a known speed trap as you come down a hill to the 50km zone but at that time of the morning? I was doing the limit but was incensed at the van being there catching folks on their way to work paying a fortune in taxes etc.

scurnane

Afaik GoSafe are being paid approx €80million over 5 years to provide a fixed amount of surveyed hours. They don't get any bonuses for detections apparently.
I don't have a problem as long as the paid fines from the speeders go into the govt coffers and means I have to pay less tax.

darkpagandeath

Speed cameras on the m50.......

Galway K9

Leanna Prickly Maiden wrote: »

Like them or loathe them it is neither revenue collection nor life saving. It is enforcing the law.

Checks for posts in emergency services....

Nabber

See one a top of a climbing lane. No better place to setup if you wanna make money. Speed limit 100km, truck, van or car doing 85km. Chance are you are going to hit 110km to get past them.

One always parked illegally at Mount Argos.

Turtwig

Wabbit Ears wrote: »

Heard on the radio there was some figures that the number of road deaths is actually steadily increasing again with 2012 being a really good year, Does this prove the sceptic right that its little more than a money spinner and no real deterrent or driver behaviour adjuster?

Jan-December 2013 there were 181 fatal collision according to RSA
2014 Rose to 196

I hate this obsession with year on year road deaths. Like we can actually tell something from them. We can't! The sooner they stop reporting and pontificating rules on them the better. It's simple, if you have a lot of deaths one year you'd expect less deaths the following years by default. No introduction of laws or penalty points needed. Likewise, if you have very few deaths one year you expect a lot more deaths the next years. It's called regression to the mean. Road deaths need to, at the very least, be assessed on decade long trends. This "compared to this time last year" is complete and utter bullsht. It's the worse kind of data to make policy decisions.

SaveOurLyric

Both.
A real win-win situation.

darkpagandeath

Turtwig wrote: »

I hate this obsession with year on year road deaths. Like we can actually tell something from them. We can't! The sooner they stop reporting and pontificating rules on them the better. It's simple, if you have a lot of deaths one year you'd expect less deaths the following years by default. No introduction of laws or penalty points needed. Likewise, if you have very few deaths one year you expect a lot more deaths the next years. It's called regression to the mean. Road deaths need to, at the very least, be assessed on decade long trends. This "compared to this time last year" is complete and utter bullsht. It's the worse kind of data to make policy decisions.

More people die of flu each year.

TheChizler

Seeing as it costs more to run them than they bring in they are objectively not a revenue raiser.

SaveOurLyric

TheChizler wrote: »

Seeing as it costs more to run them than they bring in they are objectively not a revenue raiser.

Please desist from disturbing people in their ignorance having a good moan. You and your fancy 'objective' facts. They arent wanted around here thanks.

Son Of A Vidic

PFL wrote: »

Go safe vans - revenue raiser or life saver

Revenue raiser of course. They're never positioned around accident blackspots or on dangerous stretches of road like they claim to be.

bpmurray

TheChizler wrote: »

Seeing as it costs more to run them than they bring in they are objectively not a revenue raiser.

Ah stop - you can't let the facts get in the way now.

Sala

There are better things to focus on for safety than speed in my opinion. I always see them late at night in a 60km area after the limit drops from 80. It wouldn't be dangerous to be doing over the 60 at that time. Much more dangerous driving occurs in rush hour on this stretch with people weaving in and out of lanes or shooting up the bus lane and pulling in last minute.

TheChizler

A couple of places I've seen them seem like places that speeding wouldn't be a problem, and it wouldn't in itself, but combined with the characteristics of the area would be dangerous; hidden entrances, junctions that can develop queues, narrow parts of the road, like you see on the Douglas Road and Blackrock Road for instance. I've never seen one and after initially thinking it was pointless placement not been able to make sense of it when taking other things into account.

KaaaaaaPOW

TheChizler wrote: »

Seeing as it costs more to run them than they bring in they are objectively not a revenue raiser.

Always thought that should have been looked at.


A few judges have started throwing out cases around the country aswell cuz the vans are just sitting in 50kph zones.

Yiikes

Nothing beats driving passed a school, seeing parents parked up on the footpaths on the phone. Kids darting in and out with no zebra crossing and a 50km/h limit. People talking on the phone, accelerating quickly suddenly stopping to pick up kids. But sure the go safe van out on the 100km/h dual carriage way and gard hidden at the start of the 60km/h road really are changing behaviour.


The stupider the place to speed/use the phone the less likely you are going to get caught. Variable speed limits are the way to go but the RSA would never accept the idea of a limit being raised from 100 to say 110km/h during quiet periods. 30km/h outside open schools make sense but makes little sense in the middle of August at 9pm (and of course the cost is a barrier)

Capt'n Midnight

Why do they need vans ?

Solar powered cameras with a 3G connection would be a tiny fraction of the price.

And much smaller so no problems with parking.



If they want to cut down on speeding just get some average speed cameras, especially before and after accident black spots.


If they want to raise revenue then use the existing cameras on our motorways to fine people who don't keep left unless overtaking.


Have the RSA stopped publishing Free Speed Surveys ??
http://www.rsa.ie/RSA/Road-Safety/RSA-Statistics/Surveys--Consultations/Speed/ None since 2011.

If you want to improve safety , change behaviour and raise revenue here's the area you should target. I'd like to see the measured figures on the 30Km/h zones outside schools and in town too.

82% of car drivers surveyed exceeded the 50km/h limit on urban national
roads, a marginal decrease of one percentage point on 2009 figures;
• 53% of these drivers exceeded the speed limit by 10km/h or more;

The average speed of cars on urban national roads was about 10 km/h
above the 50 km/h posted speed limit. Furthermore , only 19.9% of
drivers were observed travelling below the speed limit and 6.3% were
travelling between 80 and 100 km/h.

On urban arterial roads with a 50km/h speed limit, the number of cars
exceeding the speed limit increased from 40% in 2007 to 70% in 2008;

The Backwards Man

How is it anything like shooting fish in a barrel? The poor fish can't do anything to prevent its fate, YOU can.

Capt'n Midnight

Yiikes wrote: »

Variable speed limits are the way to go but the RSA would never accept the idea of a limit being raised from 100 to say 110km/h during quiet periods. 30km/h outside open schools make sense but makes little sense in the middle of August at 9pm (and of course the cost is a barrier)

In the UK they have variable limits on motorways.
40mph / 60 Km/h is roughly the speed at which you get most throughput , ideal for rush-hour.

In France they have something similar but you can only go at the limit in good weather, not like here where people still push it bad weather.

The German system of a speed limit sticker on goods vehicles is another option.

Though Free Speed Survey's have shown that most HGV's speed.

kub

It is weird how i always get this urge, i drive a van and whenever i see these parasites on the side of the road, i usually park right behind them nice and close and take out my flask and have a cuppa.
They can't do much really, his van and my van are both commercial vehicles and if he is allowed park there then so am I.

Now if it was a Garda van....well that's completely different.

Yiikes

SaveOurLyric wrote: »

Please desist from disturbing people in their ignorance having a good moan. You and your fancy 'objective' facts. They arent wanted around here thanks.

Money spent better on mental health and suicide prevention which claims more lives and gets a fraction of the budget. But no politician is going to wag the finger at us when this figure rises or compare year on year figures, better for them to stay quiet and pretend its not a problem. Upping the penalty points to 3 for speeding and outsourcing enforcement is where its at for saving lives in Ireland for politicians. Lets pretend these things are saving lives.

The introduction of speed vans coincided with the recession causing youth emigration and lower road activity. As the economy is taking off again we can see figures increasing once again. More cars, more miles, more crashes, behavior worsening will have zero to do with the inevitable increase. But of course the same people will call for more enforcement of limits. Claims behaviour has gotten worse is repeated year on year. Search on this site will show threads claiming its getting worse with posters agreeing.
Example from 12 years ago for example boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=103134
The vans are a waste of money.

The GoSafe areas are well publicized, so not much of an excuse really for getting caught, no matter how sneaky they are. I doubt they are a major revenue generator.
What pisses me of big time is the sneaky Garda speed vans who are definately at it just for numbers and revenue. There is a road near me which is dead straight, no one has ever died on it or no serious accidents bar the odd fender bender. It is a 50km limit (reduced from 80 a couple of years ago) and they hide there late at night catching people doing 55km/hr. There are several other examples just in my local area.

Shep_Dog

The problem with the Go-Safe vans is that the chances of being caught in the first place are slim as there are so few of them, and the penalties are quite affordable given the chances of being caught again in the same year are so low. Those who do get caught put it down to bad luck or 'victimisation' rather than justice taking its course.

We could remove the excuse of 'revenue generating exercise' put forward by apologists for the law-breakers by getting rid of the fines and instead applying more points. Say, 1 penalty point per km over the limit. That combined with more vans and concealment would clean up our roads in short-order.

It's scandalous that under, the current regime, drivers who are detected as not being capable of controlling their speed or who deliberately break the law merely get a 'slap on the wrist' and are permitted to continue posing a risk to others. Fining them, just allows people to buy their way out of road safety obligations.

PFL

You've always done the correct speed in each zone every time? 55 in a 50 zone fine and three points is not proper use of these vans put in place to save lives.

Vans concealed when coming off higher speed zones all designed to get the numbers detected up.

The vans have a performance target to meet each year. Easier to do it when a driver has to make a drastic change in speed during their journey i.e. Entering a town etc.

Detection of speeding motorists doing 140 in 100 zones, dangerous overtaking, tail gating, aggressive driving, under taken - these are road behaviours that should be stamped out.

SaveOurLyric

PFL wrote: »

You've always done the correct speed in each zone every time? 55 in a 50 zone fine and three points is not proper use of these vans put in place to save lives.

Vans concealed when coming off higher speed zones all designed to get the numbers detected up.

The vans have a performance target to meet each year. Easier to do it when a driver has to make a drastic change in speed during their journey i.e. Entering a town etc.

Detection of speeding motorists doing 140 in 100 zones, dangerous overtaking, tail gating, aggressive driving, under taken - these are road behaviours that should be stamped out.

Agree with first point - the penalty points should be higher to be a greater deterrent.


Its goods that they have targets - performance always improve with targets. And common sense that they go to the target rich spots - the more they catch per hour the higher their efficiency and effectiveness.

The other behaviours are simply harder and less efficiently caught. But those with a generally cavalier and "I'll decide myself which road rules I will observe and which I won't" attitude can be best restrained in their behaviour by a high rate of points offence catching for whatever offence. And speeding works very well in this respect. The more caught, the greater the behaviour modification, which is the real goal.

Grayson

It's a bit nuts that people are complaining about getting caught speeding like it's unfair.

All they had to do was go a little bit slower.

I used to work with the wheelchair assoc. There were loads of members who had been in RTA's. Most weren't driving, they were victims. People think that it's ok to go faster because they've never harmed anyone. That's true, they've never harmed anyone until the point where they do.

(I will admit that the point of the Go Safe vans is kinda ruined if they can't actually testify but that's a separate issue whether or not we should be monitoring in the first place)

excuse_me

Shep_Dog wrote: »

The problem with the Go-Safe vans is that the chances of being caught in the first place are slim as there are so few of them, and the penalties are quite affordable given the chances of being caught again in the same year are so low. Those who do get caught put it down to bad luck or 'victimisation' rather than justice taking its course.

We could remove the excuse of 'revenue generating exercise' put forward by apologists for the law-breakers by getting rid of the fines and instead applying more points. Say, 1 penalty point per km over the limit. That combined with more vans and concealment would clean up our roads in short-order.

It's scandalous that under, the current regime, drivers who are detected as not being capable of controlling their speed or who deliberately break the law merely get a 'slap on the wrist' and are permitted to continue posing a risk to others. Fining them, just allows people to buy their way out of road safety obligations.

the penalties are 80 euro each , how is that affordable

whole thing is a revenue raising racket disguised as a safety protection system

Aka Ishur

excuse_me wrote: »

the penalties are 80 euro each , how is that affordable

whole thing is a revenue raising racket disguised as a safety protection system

Then its a fairly crap racket as it runs at a loss.

Capt'n Midnight

excuse_me wrote: »

the penalties are 80 euro each , how is that affordable

It's less the cost of a full tank for many.

Actually driving faster and accelerating more uses more fuel so habitual speeders are burning up that sort of money anyway in lower mpg.

If you're on €40 a hour it's two hours wages, and in the old days you could save that much time on a single trip down to Cork and back if you really put the foot down. How long would it take a taxi driver to make that sort of money rushing to an airport ?

The fine is not a deterrent. Only the points are.

To make the fine a deterrent you'd have to use the Scandinavian system where you multiply the excess speed by the persons income. Switzerland so something similar. The Dutch police impounded a Bugatti Veyron.

excuse_me

Aka Ishur wrote: »

Then its a fairly crap racket as it runs at a loss.

the state likes to be seen to be taking some action on certain things

a busy road not far from me has a 50 km speed limit yet the secondary roads feeding off it are 80 km , the reason for it is a number of years ago a mother was struggling to deal with noisy kids in the back of her car , she pulled up on this busy road , got out and stepped in front of a lorry

next council meeting , the suits decided they needed to do something so they slapped a redicolously low speed limit on the road in question

excuse_me

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

It's less the cost of a full tank for many.

Actually driving faster and accelerating more uses more fuel so habitual speeders are burning up that sort of money anyway in lower mpg.

If you're on €40 a hour it's two hours wages, and in the old days you could save that much time on a single trip down to Cork and back if you really put the foot down. How long would it take a taxi driver to make that sort of money rushing to an airport ?

The fine is not a deterrent. Only the points are.

To make the fine a deterrent you'd have to use the Scandinavian system where you multiply the excess speed by the persons income. Switzerland so something similar. The Dutch police impounded a Bugatti Veyron.

what the scanadanavians have is nanny statism gone made

their is little to no enjoyment left in motoring with these speed vans , you are constantly wary of being done

Renegade Mechanic

I decided to drive the 100kmh N8 between Cashel and Thurles for a few weeks last year. Now, many don't know but that national road, despite being almost as wide as the motorway beside, had it's limit reduced to 80 kmh..
People regularly blitzed down the motorway at 160 kmh and rarely was there a speed trap set up. If there was, the "public protectors" deliberately ignored the vantage points built for them along the motorway and parked behind the embankments of the flyovers.
Or worse, parked on the on-ramps, forcing merging traffic to avoid them so they could catch someone going past (despite the fact that if you're awake, you can spot their roofs from the road :rolleyes: )

On the N8 however. At least twice a week, a van was parked at different "farmers gates" along the road, waiting. I'm not joking. Sometimes it was once a week but generally twice.
On one particular day, I drove past and ccontinued down the long straight. At the end? Another, unmarked mondeo. In case you either sped up after the van or flashed warn other drivers.

Safety? Don't make me laugh.

ScumLord

Turtwig wrote: »

I hate this obsession with year on year road deaths. Like we can actually tell something from them. We can't! The sooner they stop reporting and pontificating rules on them the better.

What I don't like about it is the reason for every crash is speeding, I wonder do they investigate at all anymore or just use every road death as a statistic in their advertising campaign.

I see people on the road now that seem to assume that just because their rolling along at 70kph that their safe. They can now look out their side window, play with their phone or have a face to face conversation with their passenger while the car wobbles all over the road.

What about the state of the roads, that never seems to be a contributing factor to accidents, even though the closest I've come to crashing my car was due to poor road conditions. What about slow moving vehicles causing tail backs and aggressive overtaking? What about stupid road junctions? Putting pedestrian crossings right beside junctions? junctions with two lanes on one side of the junction which turn into one lane just on the other side of the junction?

The government is blaming everyone that get's killed on the roads of this country of being speeders so they can avoid any blame for the condition of the Irish road network.

Capt'n Midnight

Renegade Mechanic wrote: »

I decided to drive the 100kmh N8 between Cashel and Thurles for a few weeks last year. Now, many don't know but that national road, despite being almost as wide as the motorway beside, had it's limit reduced to 80 kmh..
People regularly blitzed down the motorway at 160 kmh and rarely was there a speed trap set up.
...
Safety? Don't make me laugh.

Pretty much word for word a description of using the old road to bypass the M4 toll.

Limit was dropped to 80Km/h and overtaking prohibited.

EazyD

Until they start putting them in actual black spots I won't be convinced.

Little CuChulainn

I remember when they were first put in people were giving out about them not being in dangerous spots. Yet I've been to the scenes of fatal accidents at nearly every road they are on in my county. A lot of the times people just don't know about the accidents that have occurred on a stretch of road.

Little CuChulainn

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Pretty much word for word a description of using the old road to bypass the M4 toll.

Limit was dropped to 80Km/h and overtaking prohibited.

The bit from enfield to kilcock or enfield to clonard? FYI the traffic corps from Mullingar regularly patrol that stretch of motorway in an unmarked car. The thing about it is, motorways are designed for higher speeds so while you might be successful in trapping speeders on a motorway you aren't necessarily stopping dangerous driving. Better to focus on the smaller unlit and poorly maintained roads.

EazyD

Little CuChulainn wrote: »

I remember when they were first put in people were giving out about them not being in dangerous spots. Yet I've been to the scenes of fatal accidents at nearly every road they are on in my county. A lot of the times people just don't know about the accidents that have occurred on a stretch of road.

In Dublin they are more often than not on wide stretches where speed limits change abruptly and very few if any fatalities have occurred. Their placement should be determined by the proportion of collisions relative to usage/amount of traffic over a given period.

ScumLord

Little CuChulainn wrote: »

The thing about it is, motorways are designed for higher speeds so while you might be successful in trapping speeders on a motorway you aren't necessarily stopping dangerous driving.

The magazine focus has an article on Britain's most dangerous roads and micromorts, a unit of measurement for how likely you are to die doing something. 1 micromort would be a one in a million chance of dying.

Amazingly in the article it says that Ireland doesn't have the most dangerous roads in Europe. Germany, France and Finland are above us.

It also showed motorways are generally much safer.

The_Valeyard

The roads have gone to sh'te though since winter. Potholes everywhere.