Traffic offence

Dingatron

Just looking for some views on a recent traffic offence I committed.

Anyway the story goes. I am a regular visitor to Dublin Airport. for anyone who knows the area at the back of the multi-storey carpark there is a two way road. For some time this was being used as a rat run by traffic coming off the Airport roundabout to avoid the tailbacks at the Coachmans/Swords road. The Airport authorities quite rightly needed to discourage this as it lead to traffic congestion to users of the Airport. On this road they errecected a temporary set of traffic lights (one side of the road)before the carpark exit. 90% of people who use the Airport knows the history of this and ignore this if there are no cars coming off the toll booths. It was dark and a jeep was behind me with high beems so I had my mirror tilted. i checked the left and saw there were no cars at the toll (150 yards away) so proceeded through the light. Flashing lights etc. and I was hauled in by a garda car and summonsed. Ok, yes I was guilty, but my point is that there has to be a difference between breaking this light that was instigated by the Airport rather than a regular traffic light which I would never dream of breaking? Is this legal? Also pointed out the fact that if you stood beside this light for half an hour you would see 50 cars ignore it. Anyone think I have a case or is it just tough luck? I've a clean licence for 12 yrs and feel this is a crap way to end that.

seamus

Win some, lose some. Everybody else does it, but you got caught, I don't think it's any defence, especially if you add "But I do it all the time".

I would assume it falls into the category of "failing to obey road signs", even though it's in the airport, it's a public road, so.......

amp

Finding it hard to see the Humanities aspect in this thread. Shall I move it to Motors?

Gordon

Motors probably the best place for it.
IT'S A TRAFFIC LIGHT!!
What you did was illegal and saying that other people do it isn't the best way to argue your case. The police will say maybe - "y'know everyone's doing it so we want to put an end to it once and for all" You may have been the first.

If someone broke the light and killed someone it would be a different story completely.

Dingatron

Its a temporary set of traffic lights that was not errected by the county council.

Does that mean I can errect a set of lights on land I own and it would come under the control of the police to monitor it? I don't think so!

As I said I was guilty. Fair cop and all that. But I still think that this is different than going through a set of lights on the main road. I reckon I am the first to have been done for this and this is why I was looking for opinions.

If someone broke the light and killed someone it would be a different story completely.

Agreed this would be a completly different story but would never have been the case as there was no cars at the toll booth. I am not some maniac who has total disregard for the law but as I knew the history behind this etc. like everyone else ignored this light. The bloody thing is'nt even sync'ed correctly. One light goes green before the other.

Finding it hard to see the Humanities aspect in this thread. Shall I move it to Motors?

Yes my mistake should have posted in Motors can a mod move it?

Borzoi

Hard to feel sympathatic to your cause ding. You're a rat-runner, you broke the lights, you got caught.

Pay the fine and move on, though TBH there's a good chance the cop will never process the paperwork.

Dingatron

Well I guess that's that. Fingal CC have the same opinion that a traffic light is a traffic light regardless whether its temporary or not, or whether it is functioning correctly or not! How many notes is it going to cost me? Is it set fine or down to the judges mood?:rolleyes:

seamus

It's strange that you're being summoned, but that's probably because you stopped and looked first, then broke the lights, you didn't speed through just as it was changing to red. My brother got an on the spot for the latter, but I suppose it depends on the judge and how he feels about such matters.......