Speed checks frequency increasing 10 fold - conspiracy?

Why don't they just put cameras on the bus lanes and fine everyone that uses them illegally ?

At a lazy guess it would appear to me that there is more presence of the traffic corp on the roads operating checkpoints and speedchecks, and there is more of those speedvans operating.

However they operate in areas that are not known "incident spots" and instead I see them on routes and roads where there is a fluctuating speed limit (ie Road goes from 100 to 80 for like 200 yards then back to 100) and on busy roads with unusual speed limits.

There is one frequently at the intersection on the Malahide road, at the traffic lights by Kinsealy. If coming from Malahide as you come around the Castle the limit is 60kmph, and then it changes to 50kmph for a "residential "zone, as there is some houses sporadically on the sides of the road. It's a frequently known spot that everyone crawls down to snails pace, but no one is actually clear on the speed limit of that area, as there is no signposting. Its like an urban myth that developed.

The same van typically moves further up the road around near the Applegreen on your way to Coolock.

On my way home from work I used to take the offramp to join the N2 before going onto the M50. The road is 100kmph and then dips to 80kmph for 200 yards, before going back to 100kmph. Van is frequently at the point where the speed dips. It's a three lane duel carriageway, that then goes four lanes, I've never seen an incident at this section, but they are always there.

Obviously you would never get confirmation or concrete facts that would highlight any sort of dodgy behavior, but I get the distinct impression that speed vans and checkpoints are being setup with high emphasis on revenue generation, rather then accident prevention.

I know a few roads around Fingal that are notoriously dangerous, that never once have I seen a checkpoint or speedvan, or even Garda holding camera, but yet I've had a checkpoint exiting my housing estate, I've gone through a checkpoint mounted outside Woodies in Swords, and a rake of other stupid illogical places.

5starpool wrote: »

I've noticed them a lot more recently too. Has it not been privatised though, so the governement don't receive most of the money?

A number of speedvans have been introduced by a private entity, but I believe its a tender, in that they pay a fee to the government in order to operate.

You will spot them mostly in areas of fluctuating speed limits and confusing sign posting areas, along with busy stretches of roads, since their only interested is revenue generation.

They have no obligation or contractual obligation to provide analysis that their placement is making the road safer, and as such are never present on well known dangerous roads or bends.

ectoraige wrote: »

Wow, that's some claim. Who is this private entity, and do you have any proof, or is this just some random thought that popped into your head?

Are you for real? It's been a headline issues since 2013.

GoSafe vans are present all around the country, and have been involved in a number of high profile cases regarding their operation and regulation and questions over their actual impact.

The Guardaí outsourced certain hours of speeding monitoring and put it out to tender (due to the Guarda recruitment freeze) and GoSafe won the contract. They have a five year contract and operate both their own vans along with actual Guardaí ones I believe.

Their contract is due to expire shortly, where I'd imagine another tender will be put out to the private sector.

Go Safe signed an €80m contract with An Garda Síochána in 2009 to operate a fleet of vans which work alongside the vans operated by gardaí themselves.

They came really to the fore in December last year when a Monaghen judge dismissed all cases regarding GoSafe vans, and indicated he would not prosecute any driver brought up on charges linking from a GoSafe Van. He said their purposefully placement in zones with quickly fluctuating speed limits brought the law into disrepute, and there was massive issues with the chain of evidence and how summonses were brought about.

Justice Minister confirmed a report was requested from the Guardaí on the GoSafe vans operation to highlight any issues, never actually heard if anything came out of that.

Guy:Incognito wrote: »

Have they? Has anyone ever shown proof of that?

Yes.

Unlike the UK, where they have a 10% tolerance, there is no tolerance built into the law here, nor by the operations by Guardaí monitoring traffic speeds by handheld camera, by stationary camera, Guardaí operated vans or the GoSafe vans.

I'd imagine there is probably situations where a Guardaí operating a handheld or stationary camera will oversee a 1kmph limit, but the fixed cameras don't allow tolerances afaik. If so, it's not written down anywhere and must be an unwritten rule.

My mother received a fine and penalty points a few years ago, with the notice indicating she was doing 62kmph in a 60kmph zone near Finglas. My Da is usually good and filing stuff like that away, will ask him over the weekend if he still has it and I'll share a picture.

Guy:Incognito wrote: »

Must be why theres never any crashes on the M50.

In fairness M50 crashes (being a daily commuter and dealing with the chaos every second day) is down to poor driving and awareness in my view. You can see it yourself, people totally unaware of how to safely drive on the M50.

Moving lanes without checking mirrors and indicating when they are half way into the next lane, tailgating, impatience, you name it. The M50 is the perfect test case for bad driving, all they need is to plonk a roundabout on it and it would anarchy.

I've seen one speedvan in two years of doing the daily commute, one. I've noticed more Garda Corps SUV's and Cars going up and down it lately, but have literally seen first hand how they seem to not spot or catch clear incidents of speeding or wreckless driving.

Although unsure if it's a "urban myth" but heard from some people before, that Guardaí are reluctant to write you up for speeding unless they have clocked you on a camera, as its left open to interpretation. They would be acting on "suspicion of speeding" which is only actually verifiable by a speeding camera.

Can anyone debunk that myth? I remember going through town doing 60 and stopping at a red light. Guarda car pulled up beside me and rolled down the window and asked what I was playing at doing 60. Replied I was under the impression the speed limit was 60 as it was the last speed sign I had seen.

Called me a clown and where was I from that a residential area was 60kmph (wasn't residential) and when I said I'd been driving that route a year and never saw a 50kmph sign ever, he just told me to slow down and drove off. Kinda reinforced my thoughts that the myth was maybe true, as he only seemed certain I was over the limit when I admitted it. (And I've still never checked what the limit on that road is)

The law on this is straight forward. You are required to drive within the speed limit (irrespective of how right or wrong you personally believe it to be on any given stretch of road).

If you choose not to, then you are - basically - volunteering to pay speeding fines.

That's your prerogative, of course, but don't expect those who choose to avoid speeding fines by observing the speed limits to be upset that you are stupid enough to volunteer to pay speeding fines that you could easily avoid.

The inconsistency with which speed traps are deployed nationwide has always bugged me, not least because drivers speed up once beyond them but also because it facilitates the "garda are just shooting fish in a barrel " argument.

As has previously been mentioned, don't speed and you won't get fined. However I believe garda holding speed guns are utterly useless as far as the changing the national pastime of speeding is concerned. It's also a total waste of vital manpower. At some point economies of scale and a tad bit of common sense will enable tamper proof GPS monitors to be installed in all cars which will track everything the driver does. This, I believe will be 1000 times more effective than the current wholly inadequate system. The beauty will be that there will be no way out of it.

Until technology saves drivers from themselves it'll be up to drivers to stick to common sense and slow down.

heybaby wrote: »

The inconsistency with which speed traps are deployed nationwide has always bugged me, not least because drivers speed up once beyond them but also because it facilitates the "garda are just shooting fish in a barrel " argument.

As has previously been mentioned, don't speed and you won't get fined. However I believe garda holding speed guns are utterly useless as far as the changing the national pastime of speeding is concerned. It's also a total waste of vital manpower. At some point economies of scale and a tad bit of common sense will enable tamper proof GPS monitors to be installed in all cars which will track everything the driver does. This, I believe will be 1000 times more effective than the current wholly inadequate system. The beauty will be that there will be no way out of it.

Until technology saves drivers from themselves it'll be up to drivers to stick to common sense and slow down.

A number of insurers here are trialing GPS tags for cars on a beta/trial basis to see if it's something to introduce. I know Aviva are offering it as an incentive for policy holders. It records your speed limit on certain roads matching it against a DB where roads limits are stored. But it also monitors to ensure you dont hit speeds that is simply illegal everywhere etc.

Although it also tracks your journeys and distances, and in some ways is to catch out people who lie about their annual distance or car usage when signing up for a new policy.

Some European countries have them again on a trial basis, but there appears to be one GPS tag that was already "hacked" whereby you could feed it bogus data to relay back to the insurer.

Personally I'd say the next step is probably unmanned cameras that automatically clock and record details of speeders. Their is a rollout in Dublin around Luas lines, with these cameras recording cards that break red lights on luas tracks to automatically send a fine and penalty points notice.

Matter of time before they are mounted on underpasses, on motorways etc. Surprised they arn't here already, the M50 for example has those notification boards at X distance, so would imagine cameras will eventually be hung from them.

TheDoc wrote: »

Are you for real? It's been a headline issues since 2013.

GoSafe vans are present all around the country, and have been involved in a number of high profile cases regarding their operation and regulation and questions over their actual impact.

Oh, I'm well aware of GoSafe. However, you said:

TheDoc wrote: »

A number of speedvans have been introduced by a private entity, but I believe its a tender, in that they pay a fee to the government in order to operate.

GoSafe don't pay a fee to the government in order to operate, it's the exact opposite. The government pay GoSafe around €1.7m per month to operate the scheme. Also, it's been in the headlines since it was introduced in 2010, maybe you only noticed the headlines in 2013?

The total cost of the contract up to November 2014 was €80m and the department recovered €18.9m through speeding fines, which means the overall cost of the scheme to the state was about €61.1m.

A death through an RTA is estimated to cost the state about €1m (can't remember where that's cited). So if you reckon the scheme saves the lives of 62 people over four years then yes, it's making money for the state. If you think it has saved fewer than 62 people, then it's a net loss to the state's coffers.