Go Safe query

Demonical

I was reading the following article:
http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/courts/speed-charges-dropped-in-camera-contract-row-31547443.html
where it says

The Go Safe consortium was last year paid €17.23m by gardaí, with the current contract due to expire in November of this year.

and then goes on to say

Go Safe's Fixed Charge Penalties from speeding fine detections have generated €18.9m in income between November 2010 to the end of June 2014.

Does this mean that the Gardai/Government are actually at a loss by paying Go Safe to run these vans? and yet

The Go Safe Consortium was recording operating profits of around €50,000 a week in 2012.

or am I reading it all wrong?

Cookie_Monster

Yes, They paid $80m for 6 years of monitoring and only received 20m back in the 4 year period, lets imply 30m over the same 6 year period so a 60m cost to run the service with around 15m of that directly as profit for the operators based on 2012 O.P levels.

Peregrinus

They are at a loss as compared with the alternative of not operating any vans and not issuing any tickets. But, on that basis, virtually all Garda operations run at a loss, since it would be cheaper not to run them at all.

But the objective of enforcing the law is not to raise revenue; it's to provide peace, order and good government. You can query whether enforcing speed limits, etc, through fixed penalty notices does that, but the answer doesn't depend on how much it costs to run the operation.

Assuming you have a policy of enforcing traffic laws through active monitoring and issuing fixed penalty notices, could the guards have run the operation directly at a cost of less than $80 over six years, when we factor in wages, the costs of recruiting, training and managing the extra guards involved, the cost of providing and maintaing vans, etc, etc? I don't know the answer to that question, but I think that's the question you're asking.

Victor

Many parties have contracts with the various arms of the state. For everything from paper to vehicles, medical services, buildings and military equipment. The vast majority of those suppliers make a profit. If there was no profit or at least he prospect of a profit, they wouldn't provide the product or service. The only reason people give out about Go Safe is that there is a more reasonable prospect of them being caught speeding and hence having to hand over money.

What the Independent (and other commentators) is doing is economically illiterate and only looking at the financial cost - that is the fines income against the cost of running the service. What it is failing to take into account are the economic[/s] costs - the cost of collisions and subsequent injuries, the cost of policing, prosecution, etc.

delahuntv

It operates at a massive "profit" for the state and taxpayers.

A road death is estimated to cost a country about €2m.

Since camera vans were introduced, road deaths and serious injury has dropped massively.

Yes, better roads also helps. But number of miles travelled on Irish roads has increased hugely and accidents and death have dropped substantially - its no coincidence that the big drops coincided with introduction of speed cameras.

cython

delahuntv wrote: »

It operates at a massive "profit" for the state and taxpayers.

A road death is estimated to cost a country about €2m.

Since camera vans were introduced, road deaths and serious injury has dropped massively.

Yes, better roads also helps. But number of miles travelled on Irish roads has increased hugely and accidents and death have dropped substantially - its no coincidence that the big drops coincided with introduction of speed cameras.

Is that specifically the introduction of GoSafe vans that this coincided with, or camera vans in general? The latter happened long before GoSafe was conceived of, after all.....

Carawaystick

Was Martin Callinan head of the guardswhen the contract was signed?
Why isn't the contract public, or the contractor in precluded from becoming an unlimited company

Fred Swanson

This post has been deleted.

delahuntv

Fred Swanson wrote: »

Is there a breakdown of how this figure is arrived at?

Google it - You'll get all the info you want

Fred Swanson

This post has been deleted.

delahuntv

Fred Swanson wrote: »

Gotta call bullsh1t on that. Referenced to a TD/civil servants salary no doubt.

26.5/hour is about 50k a year.

Try using a calculator.

Del2005

delahuntv wrote: »

It operates at a massive "profit" for the state and taxpayers.

A road death is estimated to cost a country about €2m.

Since camera vans were introduced, road deaths and serious injury has dropped massively.

Yes, better roads also helps. But number of miles travelled on Irish roads has increased hugely and accidents and death have dropped substantially - its no coincidence that the big drops coincided with introduction of speed cameras.

The majority of our inter urban roads where upgraded to motorway and cars have gotten way safer, then they introduced Go Safe. If the speed vans where making a difference then there should have been no tickets issued, as getting a letter in the door 2 weeks later is a bit late to slow down.

monument

delahuntv wrote: »

26.5/hour is about 50k a year.

Try using a calculator.

Fred Swanson wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

Lads -- the two of you can cut it out / tone it down / post with a little less sharpness.

Victor

Fred Swanson wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

delahuntv wrote: »

26.5/hour is about 50k a year.

Try using a calculator.

The two of you might try to improve the quality of your posts

Moderator