More average speed cameras coming soon

bop1977

Bird hill and the port tunnel were the start and now it looks like they are going to add it country wide.

https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2024/02/14/three-state-agencies-working-on-roll-out-of-time-over-distance-speed-cameras/

Allinall

No harm.

Atlantic Dawn

I'd actually like to see them in urban towns instead of those headwrecking speedbumps.

Banzai600

its a joke, i counted 13 ppl on the m50 the other day on phones in the space of 10 mins without trying, driving cars, trucks, coaches with ppl on board. its amazing what you see on a motorbike. and the smell of ppl smoking blow in the city traffic and on the m50 is worse than ever. ph usage is off the charts and hasnt been addressed. the RSA is a clown shop imo, handy job for whoever needs a leg up.

Fian

This is good news, but what we really need is ANPR cameras at traffic lights. It would speed up traffic loads if people knew they would get done for breaking lights every time they did it, then we would not need the standard 4/5 second gap between one set going red and the others going green, which is currently in place to account for the few cars that are going to continue through red lights just after they have turned.

Still it is positive, if people know they will get nabbed for speeding they will stop speeding.

User1998

I’d have no problem with average speed cameras if they adopted the same tolerances as the UK, 10% + 2mph.

So if the speed limit is 120kph you can do about 135kph with no consequence, and when you take into account that speedometers over read by about 5% you can do about 140kph on the speedometer and get away with it😃

Seth Brundle

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121775514#Comment_121775514

Whilst speedos cannot under-state the speed, they don't always over-read or if they do, it may not be by much. To claim that you can get away with doing 140km/h on the speedo is misleading!

Marcusm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121775514#Comment_121775514

UK automated speed cameras, whether average or standard, do not have those tolerances where they are installed and operated by local or road authorities. The tolerance was an ACPO recommendation which applied to police enforcement.

User1998

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121775563#Comment_121775563

All speedos are required to over read afaik? Obviously you need to have a GPS open such as Google Maps or Waze to verify actual GPS speed

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121775804#Comment_121775804

Interesting, any time I’m in the UK people around me are always speeding in average speed camera zones

the_amazing_raisin

Great news, maybe it'll stop people treating the motorways as their own personal raceway

Kaisr Sose

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121775514#Comment_121775514

What's so bad with staying under the signed speed limit? Speeding does not get you there much faster.

A system with the tolerances you set out there defeats the purpose of monitoring compliance to speed restrictions.

the_amazing_raisin

There'll always be some margin due to measurement errors. The 10%+2 rule isn't a rule first off, more of a rumour. It's there to account for any errors when measuring the speed of the target car, so that the police can minimise the risk of a legal challenge to the speeding offence

For the average speed cameras there'll still be some margin but it could be smaller given they're just measuring time

How much margin is debatable, but one way to get an idea would be to look up the speeding fines for the port tunnel and whatever the lowest one is probably close to the slowest speed they're giving fines for

That's why modern cars have cruise control. I'm on the birdhill stretch regularly and set it at 119kmh without issue

User1998

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121776077#Comment_121776077

I have no reason to go any slower than the signed speed limit, I usually set the cruise control to 130kph which gives me a GPS speed of 122kph. Not exactly speeding.

Ubbquittious

You can really see how the inhabitants of the motors forum have turned into their parents in threads like this where they're all campaigning for more enforcement now

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harmless

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121777281#Comment_121777281

Quite the compliment but it's true, in life most of us do learn some sense along the way.

GPoint

He particularly instanced Junction 13 on the M18 in Co Clare where he said a number of fatal crashes had taken place. He said the problem seemed to be because the junction was designed at a time when the road was a national road, with speed limit of 100km/h. The road had since been redesignated as a motorway, but he said there was “almost a 90 degree exit” from the motorway.

It was he said, one of a handful of “awful junctions” on the motorway network. Mr Crowe said the Athlone bypass was another example of a place where poor junctions were in place, and this appeared to have been addressed by having a lower speed limit.

He asked Mr Walsh to consider, as an interim measure, if the speed limit could be reduced around such junctions”.

So, instead of fixing road layoout and building proper exits, they will invest in speed cameras and start penalising people instead of fixing bad design of the roads.

OK, then.

cnocbui

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121778624#Comment_121778624

Near me there is a mental piece of typical Irish road engineering stupidity. An R road has a long straight bit before it joins a former N road, so cars have been in constant motion at 80 kph since they first took it several km back.

Just before the ex N road is a bridge over a stream, which had stone walls to the sides. These walls had stones start falling off them and they repaired them a couple of times. Then the imbeciels in the penny pinching council decided that instead of rebuilding or fixing the bridge properly, they would just add huge concrete ramparts on either side, like overdone kerbs, making a two lane road one lane.

As if that wasn't bad anough, the idiots put a give way sign so as to stop the traffic which had been travelling at 80 kph for many km, the last bit a straight, instead of stopping the traffic that had just turned off the N road and had only just started accelerating.

I thought this idiocy was guaranteed to cause a head-on accident, and sure enough one time I came via the ex N road looking to turn off, but there was a diversion due to a head-on. Given how infrequently I use that road, I'd say it's an absolute certainty that wasn't the only head-on the council caused with their stupidity which likely happened when I wasn't around to see them.

mikeecho

Once upon a time motors forum wasn't full of cyclists and other anti car people.

It was full of enthusiasts.

But today unless you're on a bike or ev, it's not cool.

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121782184#Comment_121782184

Is it necessary to speed to be a car enthusiast?

But I agree, bikes and EVs are way cooler 😉

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the_amazing_raisin

Interesting anecdote, earlier I was driving at 100km/h indicated and the GPS on the dashcam was saying 102, then 65 and then 7

So you can't always 100% rely on the GPS speed

User1998

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121784920#Comment_121784920

If you use a GPS app like Waze or Google Maps it will always be correct.

CalamariFritti

I dont know about this one. Yes it's not bad and it makes sense and after all it's only enforcing the law and road safety blabla. On the other hand I detest this tendency to over-control more and more aspects of civil life with technology. I mean where does it stop? Maybe I'm overdramatising but with the same argument you could demand seatbelt sensors directly connected to the pulse system or introduce mandatory weekly drug tests for everyone. And so on and so on. And it will all make sense and whats the harm. Until we're all good little worker bees never stepping out of line...

Dartz

Sounds like a tax on not having cruise control.

timmyntc

Sounds like a tax on drivers breaking the speed limit

BornSkippy

As someone who doesn't speed on the Motorway, I don't really see it as a priority for enforcement.

The dangerous driving I see regularly concerns deliberate light breaking, tailgating, aggressive swerving into other's paths for petty advantage and zoned out mobile phone use.

People passing me on the motorway at 140 km/h or even 160 don't really bother me, as long as they don't tailgate me when I'm passing a truck. I'm happy to see them pass on ahead and leave me in peace.

As mentioned above, I'd rather see these cameras at junctions and in urban areas to enforce safe driving there.

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121787835#Comment_121787835

I would agree that there is a major problem with bad driving in general, but if you look at accidents that result in a fatality they're often on major N roads and motorways, and often due to speeding

It's pretty simple math, the faster you're travelling the shorter your reaction times and the more kinetic energy you have in an impact

ELM327

I generally do 128 (indicated) on the motorway, at that speed folks are passing me and I'm passing folks. Average speed cameras are a ridiculous idea and will encourage people to take non camera roads

Seth Brundle

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121788124#Comment_121788124

...which will take them much longer to travel so I'd dispute that suggestion.

cnocbui

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121788050#Comment_121788050

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/motorways-are-safest-roads-1.1153102

So if speeding on motorways is common, speeding doesn't lead to higher accident rates. Your claim is wrong, by the way.

Inattention is the leading cause of accidents, by a huge margin.

ELM327

I think some James Bond style number plate blockers for passing the cameras will be needed!

cnocbui

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121788789#Comment_121788789

Already looked into that. The answer seems to be E-ink number plates. We will have to wait for the Chinese to make ones you can configure on the fly as the other ones look to be more or less fixed.

;-)

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121788758#Comment_121788758

Yeah that article is from 2004, can we get some more recent data?

I do agree that inattention is a major problem, and is getting worse. Unfortunately there isn't a roadside camera which can accurately detect someone not looking at the road, so can't really enforce that

This is partly why new cars are being fitted with assistants to prevent lane departure, collision avoidance and detect driver inattention. The regulators can't count on drivers paying as much attention to the road as they should

SharkMX

Went through the port tunnel yesterday. Half way through i realized i was doing 100kmh. Slowed down to 50 for the rest of the way. People started overtaking me :)

cnocbui

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121789163#Comment_121789163

Don't really need more recent data, as it's a known fact for every country and it has always been universally the case. Here's probably the best you will get from the RSA:

Motorway Driving Every day in Ireland thousands of commuters are using our growing motorway network. All major cities in Ireland are now connected by motorway. Although motorways are statistically the safest way of moving large volumes of traffic, there are still risks to drivers who use them.

https://www.rsa.ie/docs/default-source/road-safety/motorways/motorway-booklet-2018-web-%28002%29.pdf?sfvrsn=850e47e3_3

Germany has no speed restrictions on parts of it's motorway network, there are literally cars doing close to 300 kph. If speed on motorways was dangerous then you might expect them to have a high fatality rate on motorways, but the opposite is the case.

Ireland has single digit fatalities on motorways, speeding is not a problem and doesn't cause accidents, tryng to argue for anti speeding measures on motorways is completely pointles when 95% of accidents and fatalities are not on motorways.

https://road-safety.transport.ec.europa.eu/european-road-safety-observatory/data-and-analysis/country-profiles_en

Ireland will never address it's real problem, and it's not speeding, it's that rural roads are poor quality and way too narrow for the 21st century and trucks are just too big and are over the line into the oncoming lane most of the time, along with a lot of drivers who seem to straddle the centreline as a habit and cut corners. Then you have those in rural areas who believe it's their civic duty to slow down 'speeding' motorists, by pulling out of junctions in front of oncoming traffic and then accelerate slowly so as to take 1-2 km or more to reach the posted speed limit. I'd say double or tripple digits of such heroic speed enforcers have died on that hill.

I'll bet that most of the speed cameras will be on motorways to address that 5% non-problem.

I for one don't need artificial aids to make up for inattention. I have managed without them just fine for more than 40 years of attentive motoring. Such aids will make already lazy drivers even worse, I suspect.

Want to see a video of a 170Kg American wearing an Apple Vision pro while relying on his Tesla cybertrucks non-FSD to drive while he plays with his new headset?

Dartz

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121786776#Comment_121786776

Ah. The pithy thought-terminator.

The reality is, nobody setting CC at 120 has to worry about average speed cameras. Therefore, those most likely to be fined are those without cruise control. Ergo - tax on not having cruise control.

Allinall

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121789463#Comment_121789463

What about those who have cruise control but like to speed?

A tax on those who speed.

Seth Brundle

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121788758#Comment_121788758

Any increase in speed will make the outcome of any collision worse. Whilst motorways are safer for travelling at higher speeds, they are so because they're designed for it (segregated from oncoming traffic, no obstacles or street furniture or parked vehicles, no pedestrians, animals, cyclists, etc.).

That said, the post you replied to also referred to major N roads which would not be designed for the same kind of driving speeds as on a motorway.

I would however, correct you on your use of the word accident. They very rarely are accidents but are the result of a decision made by the driver. They may not have been intentional but that doesn't make it a mistake!

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121789374#Comment_121789374

Ireland will never address it's real problem, and it's not speeding, it's that rural roads are poor quality and way too narrow for the 21st century and trucks are just too big and are over the line into the oncoming lane most of the time, along with a lot of drivers who seem to straddle the centreline as a habit and cut corners. Then you have those in rural areas who believe it's their civic duty to slow down 'speeding' motorists, by pulling out of junctions in front of oncoming traffic and then accelerate slowly so as to take 1-2 km or more to reach the posted speed limit. I'd say double or tripple digits of such heroic speed enforcers have died on that hill.

Roads do not cause collisions, drivers do! People are meant to drive at a safe speed in which they can react. Also your claim that the width of rural roads is partly responsible is rubbish. People are making the choice to buy a big fat car can't suddenly expect that the road doesn't automatically widen to suit their purchase. Our roads are not a cause - people's stupid expectations are!

timmyntc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121789374#Comment_121789374

Ireland's rural roads are totally fit for purpose of driving at a certain speed. The problem is that those speed limits are too high, and even with those high limits speeding still occurs and is a factor in those collisions.

Now if only there was a way to deter speeding on those problem stretches of rural roads....