Privatised Speed Traps on the Way

Robbo

Irish Independent 12/6/03

PRIVATELY operated cameras are set to catch speeding motorists from September.

The move, announced yesterday, follows meetings between Transport Minister Seamus Brennan and Justice Minister Michael McDowell.

In a system which will operate like the clamping of parking offenders, up to 60 private fixed "grey box" speed cameras will initially be erected at a cost of €30,000 each.

The operating company will be selected by a tender process due to get underway within a matter of weeks.

The minister added they would not be erected on new roads but on accident blackspots on back roads where many fatal crashes happened.

"You cannot have a garda on every back road but you can have a camera," added the minister.

"We want to locate these cameras at blackspots where people are speeding at two o'clock in the morning."

A memo approving the radical scheme would be brought to the Cabinet by the minister within the next two to three weeks.

After that the system would be rolled out nationwide within a matter of months, probably by September.

The minister said he was due to meet Justice Minister Michael McDowell again next week on the proposal, first revealed in the Irish Independent last month. And the plans will then be discussed by the full Cabinet.

"We will be contracting out speeding cameras in the coming weeks," he added.

The successful company will operate like a Dublin clamping style operation and initially establish 60 cameras at a cost of €30,000 each, with funding provided by the Department of Transport.

The private operators will gather the evidence - but it will be up to gardai to bring prosecutions.

Mr Brennan said that considering it cost €11m for every kilometre of new road the €1.8m involved in erecting 60 fixed speed cameras was good value for money. However, he said the objective was to encourage speeding motorists to slow down and not raise revenue.

While the revenue will come to the State a deal will be worked out whereby a portion of the money will be kept by the camera company.

The move yesterday follows the disclosure that there are only three fixed speed cameras operating on any given day yet there are 20 fixed speed units on roadsides in Dublin, Louth and Meath.

Gardai rotate the cameras between the units.

However these are separate from the wide range of other mobile garda speed detection equipment in the form of laser and radar devices, in-car and motorcycle detection cameras as well as unmarked mobile speeding units called Gatso vans.

Anyone else see this is being rather stupid? Seamus wants to reduce road deaths and farms the process out to mercenaries. I'm currently over here in England and the way they do the speed cameras (once you get over their ubiquity) is quite sensible. If there's one ahead, you're shown the sign far enough away from it to slow you down to the limit or less, the cameras have dirty great fluroescent yellow stickers on them and I have yet to see one in a location where it doesn't seem necessary.

Also with the mobile camera vans, the local (Northamptonshire) police have a website where they post up the list of routes they'll focus on for the week. I believe this is commonplace for other police forces.

Cowboys Ted, cowboys.

daveg

Me thinks this will go the same way as the clamping system in Galway which is also run by a private company. I think well see a speed camera every 15 meters along the road. You can be damn sure there won't be a sign saying "please reduce your speed for the next mile as there is a speed camera"

nellieswellies

Methinks this will have a positive impact on insurance prices for those who dont offend

Silent Bob

Originally posted by nellieswellies
Methinks this will have a positive impact on insurance prices for those who dont offend

Methinks you're living in a dream world...

Redshift

Originally posted by daveg
Me thinks this will go the same way as the clamping system in Galway which is also run by a private company. I think well see a speed camera every 15 meters along the road. You can be damn sure there won't be a sign saying "please reduce your speed for the next mile as there is a speed camera"

I think by law if there is a sped camera in place there must be a sign indicating it's presence. I think the law is called entrapment or something like that.

REd

commuterised

Originally posted by nellieswellies
Methinks this will have a positive impact on insurance prices for those who dont offend

it's terrible, there is never a positive impact for those who abide by the law, only a negative impact for those who don't. Same as NCB with insurance companies. I have 5 years No Claims but I don't see any difference in my insurance.. but you're guaranteed that if I have a prang it will rocket.

Victor

Originally posted by Redshift
I think by law if there is a sped camera in place there must be a sign indicating it's presence. I think the law is called entrapment or something like that.

Not sure if the first bit is true, but entrapment is where a Garda proactively encourages you to break the law e.g. asking you for drugs rather than you offering him drugs. Do the pre-advertise "GATSO van ahead"?

Stephen

The thought of a private company operating these things annoys me. Somehow I think they will have quotas to fill...

Victor

Originally posted by Stephen
The thought of a private company operating these things annoys me. Somehow I think they will have quotas to fill...

No, quotas to unfill. Quotas of dead people.

Silent Bob

Originally posted by Victor
No, quotas to unfill. Quotas of dead people.

Private companies are entities which exist for one purpose, the making of money.

The government isn't going to want to pay them if they aren't having any effect.

How is this 'effect' most easily measured? Conviction rate.

What's the easiest way to up this rate? Find a nice road with a comparatively low speed limit and camp there giving tickets to people who are breaking the limit but not providing any danger to anyone other than themselves.

I somehow can't see them being paid based on the number of people who didn't die (a non-statistic, so to speak).
Nor can I see them hanging around at 2am down dark, dangerous country roads.

I have no problem with speed traps, as long as they are used to prevent deaths rather than gather revenue. The cynic in me doesn't see this being at the forefront of a private companies intentions...

Victor

Originally posted by Silent Bob
I somehow can't see them being paid based on the number of people who didn't die (a non-statistic, so to speak). Nor can I see them hanging around at 2am down dark, dangerous country roads.

Video cameras tend not to mind the dark and the damp.

Originally posted by Silent Bob
I have no problem with speed traps, as long as they are used to prevent deaths rather than gather revenue.

I fully concur. However, the UK experience has been that the basic speeding fine would need to rise to STG£100 (€143 at today's good rates) before the system would pay for itself. Money is not made from speeding fines.

Silent Bob

Originally posted by Victor
Money is not made from speeding fines.

I can't quibble with this Nor did I mean that the company would only gain revenue from fines.

What I meant is surely they will be paid based on some measure of performance? And the easiest measure of performance is conviction rate.