Meanwhile on the Roads...

There's a difference between a dangerous driving charge and a dangerous driving conviction - Judges will usually reduced dangerous driving to careless driving if you have no priors, to begin with.

Separately, you won't always be charged with dangerous driving for doing 190 in a 120, careless driving, generally - dangerous driving requires other factors because it still has to be proven in court that your driving proved a danger to others - it can be hard to do this from a still image. Driving at 190km/h on an empty motorway in good weather in a sportscar, it won't pass muster if you have a decent solicitor.

Here's an anecodte from a solicitor that works in the area:

I once represented a man who had been caught travelling at 217kph in a 100kph zone.

He was driving a Lamborghini. Not a good look.

Naturally he was charged with dangerous driving. It was only after extensive displays of time, money and driving courses completed that the Circuit Court judge -with great reluctance- agreed to reduce the charge from dangerous to careless driving.

Here's two people racing each other at 'up to' 200km/h who escaped without a driving ban: https://archive.ph/NYxDN

McGregor only received a speeding conviction for doing 160 in a 100: https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-30816503.html

And a second time, only received an FCPN for doing almost 160 in a 100 and only ended up in court because he didn't pay it: https://archive.ph/1B5Ef

I could go on!

It's safe to say that a Gardai's witness testimony and judgment in analysing the road conditions and the drivers behaviour is the first step in a dangerous driving charge but that, even then, it's not guaranteed (or even likely tbh).

Agreed, there is zero chance of a dangerous driving conviction based on camera evidence alone, and in most cases the charge is dropped in return for a guilty plea to careless due to the difficulty in proving it.

Reading the media report again I'm not sure if O'Keefe actually plead guilty, 'accepting the evidence' is not a guilty plea. I think the judge just wasn't having any of his solicitor's attempts to muddy the evidence given by the guard.

Again props to the judge, haven't heard so much common and road sense spoken before by one.

Spot on. It’s mind-blowing how much energy people spend raging about 'two-abreast' cyclists while thousands are getting behind the wheel under the influence. One arrest every hour is a terrifying stat. The real danger on our roads isn't the person in lycra, it's the person with a pint too many

One day I was waiting (in a car) at these lights (to the left of where the black Fiesta is in the picture) for the light to turn green. An ambulance approached from the opposite direction on the right hand side of the traffic island on the far side of the junction. The light went green and obviously I didn't move off because there was an ambulance in front of me coming through. Immediately the halfwit behind me leaned on his horn. I was driving an ordinary saloon car, not an SUV or a van, so there is no way he couldn't have seen the ambulance's blue lights over the top of my car. What was he expecting me to do, play chicken with an ambulance?

RIP

It does even more damage then that as the E bikes, scooters and scramblers all get looped into one and it gives ammunition to the anti active travel people.

Not that it would ever happen but you can bet a blanket ban of sorts would include legal 20/kph scooters and bikes which many decent people use to get to work and not only target the scramblers/bigger motorbike/throttle E bike types.

I think the discussion should be about Scramblers, ebikes and e-scooters.

The E-bikes/escooter problems seems to come down to an age bracket 13-30.

No drivers generally get a free pass and it is made out that people on bikes are the most dangerous things on the roads, and footpaths