New speed vans

gearbox

Ive been caught by the well known speed vans at the side of the road before.. you know the green/white tall transit vans with tinted windows and a little part of the tint cut out revealing a camera pointing on the side of the road... they still have them but today when i was driving to work i noticed a suspicious 05 renault master van with tinted windows on its rear and only when i got right up against it as i passed it that long behold behind the tint a speed camera nolonger with the obvious square cut out, the only thing that caught my eye was the long reflective strip at the back of the van just like the transit models... like come on... fine by all means put the van in a location with a history of crashes or a dangerous well known part of the road that may be renounded for speeding motorists but not at the side of a long uphill road nowhere near a school or housing estate like this morning at 11am. i dont care what anyone says but the main focus is on revenue not safety where it should be!

I dont condone speeding in anyway but i am strongly against cloak and dagger tactics by the gardai to "catch" speeding motorists, by all means prevent road deaths but dont hide behind bus stops and tree's, either way you have been warned!

Ivan E

Unfortunately it seems the majority of them are there because they have been sent out by their superintendents. Quota's have to be reached...

sharkman

gearbox wrote:

I dont condone speeding in anyway but i am strongly against cloak and dagger tactics by the gardai to "catch" speeding motorists, by all means prevent road deaths but dont hide behind bus stops and tree's, either way you have been warned!

I agree , the resources should be used to prevent accidents and not up the Christmas funds for the gardai's cheristmas drinks fund .

69 mustang

The best one has to be the Christmas Garda operation for drink drivers seat belts and speed and on arrival at the check point watch how the Garda lifts his/her torch pointing it at your window where your tax disc is then flagging you on with out having a whiff in your window.

Quotas before lives?

Remember kids this holiday season, in date tax discs save lives:rolleyes:

mannurse

my old man was telling me that he seen the van with a dash board mounted camera as opposed to the rear window. it was parked in behind a bus shelter on the road that runs along side the pheno. this road is a 40 mph or 60 kmh, you never see people speeding on it as such( i drive it all the time) but the flow of traffic generally travels about 45 mph or whatever that is in kmh. therefor the camera is catching people who are just going over the limit probably without realising.

alanlouthzzr

What colour was the Renault Master?

Our man in Havana

mannurse wrote:

my old man was telling me that he seen the van with a dash board mounted camera as opposed to the rear window. it was parked in behind a bus shelter on the road that runs along side the pheno. this road is a 40 mph or 60 kmh, you never see people speeding on it as such( i drive it all the time) but the flow of traffic generally travels about 45 mph or whatever that is in kmh. therefor the camera is catching people who are just going over the limit probably without realising.

One of the Gatso vans has the dash mounted camera to catch speeding motor cyclist, who can evade regular gatso vans.

ballooba

69 mustang wrote:

The best one has to be the Christmas Garda operation for drink drivers seat belts and speed and on arrival at the check point watch how the Garda lifts his/her torch pointing it at your window where your tax disc is then flagging you on with out having a whiff in your window.

Quotas before lives?

Remember kids this holiday season, in date tax discs save lives:rolleyes:

I thought spot checks for drink driving were illegal?

Our man in Havana

ballooba wrote:

I thought spot checks for drink driving were illegal?

Nope they have them every xmas!

NUTLEY BOY

ballooba wrote:

I thought spot checks for drink driving were illegal?

Don't think so any more.

Previously, they had to have reasonable grounds for suspicion in order to stop a motorist suspected of D.D.

I think that there is new (or proposed ?) RTA legislation that removes the obligation for a garda to have grounds on which to form a suspicion in order for a stop to be "good". It is/will be a straight stop from which you can be picked up for drink driving.

Our man in Havana

NUTLEY BOY wrote:

Don't think so any more.

Previously, they had to have reasonable grounds for suspicion in order to stop a motorist suspected of D.D.

I think that there is new (or proposed ?) RTA legislation that removes the obligation for a garda to have grounds on which to form a suspicion in order for a stop to be "good". It is/will be a straight stop from which you can be picked up for drink driving.

Most of their checkpoints are done under the guise of tax/insurance/driving licence checks. When they speak to you thay can "form an opinion" that you are drunk.

They is no provision for random breath tests yet.

gearbox

alanlouthzzr wrote:

What colour was the Renault Master?

it was white, it had the reflective strip on the back of it thats what brought my attention 2 it, seems to me that they put allot of time, money and effort into catching the white collar criminal, all about the €€€€€

Seth Brundle

I saw a white van pull someone over a few weeks ago. Nothing discerning about either the van or the driver until a blue light came on.

whippet

is there any evidence (apart from speculation) that the gardai work on quotas for things like speeding fines etc ? It is banded about quite a bit but I have never heard of an official 'target' that each officer has to get.

Is it speculation or is it fact?

No I am not a guard nor do I want to be, just curious.

Victor

sharkman wrote:

I agree , the resources should be used to prevent accidents and not up the Christmas funds for the gardai's cheristmas drinks fund.

I call Bullshít. I can smell it over the internet its so strong.

whippet wrote:

is there any evidence (apart from speculation) that the gardai work on quotas for things like speeding fines etc ? It is banded about quite a bit but I have never heard of an official 'target' that each officer has to get. Is it speculation or is it fact? No I am not a guard nor do I want to be, just curious.

"Quota" is probably the wrong word. If a garda division has a consistently lower number of traffic offence detections than another division, gardaí may be reassigned to the one with more detections. Middle ranking officers see this as a cut in budget, manpower and ultimately power. Some officers will then tell rank and file gardaí that there is a "quota".

However, this is no different from say murder cases, if one area has a lot of murders, you will see the number of detectives increased.

Its not perfect, but there is meaning to it.

Turner

Like anyjob really, your supervisor likes to see you have actually been doing some work for the past week/month.

Garda with no arrests/tickets for a month....

supervisor "what the Fcuk have you been doing for the past month???"

Seth Brundle

I think it is different to an extent as the gardai are frustrated at having to go out and effectively waste time just to get these stats.

A quick read of this is interesting...

breakingnews.ie wrote:

www.breakingnews.ie/2005/04/28/story200071.html
Gardaí forced to issue tickets 'to meet targets'
28/04/2005 - 07:13:05

Traffic gardaí are being forced to hand out speeding tickets to ensure their division stays out of the relegation zone, it was claimed today.

There is a league table of Garda divisions, with serious consequences for the unit which is ‘bottom of the league’ for detections.

At the annual conference of the Garda Representative Association (GRA) yesterday, gardaí voted overwhelmingly to condemn the ‘underhand approach’ of garda management in introducing a performance management system and the negative impact that the traffic strategy was having on the image of the force.

“Every bank holiday weekend, a league table (for speeding tickets) comes from Garda Headquarters,” said Garda Michael Kirby from the Clare division.

“They start off in Donegal and they go right down through it. And the division that’s in the relegation zone is in trouble. I know because at one stage my division was in the relegation zone, bottom of the table.”

He said serious pressure had been put on the members of the division to go out and get the numbers.

“That’s what this is about. It is about revenue collecting. It’s not about saving lives, it’s not achieving that. It’s not about high visibility either.”

Garda Michael Lynch from the Dublin Metropolitan East Division said the current approach was bringing the entire system of law enforcement into dispute.

If you bring in a regulation that a reasonable person would consider unreasonable, you’re starting on a slippery slide. If one law is stupid, there may be another law that’s stupid.”

He said a speeding ticket had recently been given to an elderly woman who was doing around 55kmph in a 50kmph zone.

“If you have an old lady who wouldn’t have a library book overdue, getting caught for speeding, there’s something wrong,” he said.

The contributions were in direct contrast to that of Garda Commissioner Noel Conroy, who had told the GRA conference that Gardai on traffic duty were not picking on motorists who were easy targets.

“I again challenge that perception and wish to clearly state that no such strategy has ever been directed by Garda management,” he said.

However, Garda Michael Corcoran from Cork city division said that with a policing plan target of 11 million speed checks per year, gardaí were left with little choice.

“It’s very easy for someone to go into a ‘squeeze’, where traffic has to slow right down from 60mph zone to 30mph zone – you’ll catch dozens of people that way.

But you won’t be doing the force any favours by doing it that way because everybody says: ‘They’re at it again’,” he said.

Mr Corcoran said he knew two traffic gardaí who had been transferred out of a division because they had not met performance targets.

gearbox

i rest my case that article states everything i hoped wasnt true..... but ireland being ireland... nothing changes and they get away with it, we get it in the neck

Macy

Politicians and Commissioners demand stats to show that they're tackling road safety. To get convictions they concentrate on "safe" motorways and dual carriageways rather than preventing accidents in blackspots. It's not bloody rocket science. Even if you don't believe there are quota's, you must see this nonsensical way of tackling road safety?

Nuttzz

How many people have been killed on up in innisowen in the last year? 28 I believe the news said last night

how many have been killed on the n4 at liffey valley in the last year? 0

where are the speed cameras at? not Donegal anyway....

ednwireland

heard on the news yesterday theres a task force up in inishowen arrested 7 people in 4 days for drunk driving (i see a link here )