Guardai Speed Trap farce's

Villain

I reported in another thread that I having been driving a 100 mile round trip twice weekly for the 5 weeks and had never seen a speed trap once.

Yesterday evening I saw the first speed trap and it was located on the WIDEST STRAIGHTEST AND BEST STRECTH of the 50 mile trip. I arrived home and started reading the papers, on the front page of THE STAR there was a story about the young couple and child who were killed on notorious bad stretch of road. I then read the local paper which reported a simalar story about a blackpoint where accidents were occuring regulary.

My question is are the Guardai more interested in making money than saving lives. I mean that checkpoint I passed yesterday will no doubtably have caught a lot of people breaking the 60 mph speed limit. If that officer relocated to a danger spot he may have caught very few people or no-one but at least he would have been there letting people know they will be caught if they speed in a KNOWN DANGEROUS strecth of road, he may even have saved a life!!

It's time the guardai got serious and started policing the dangerous roads and also started policing them at a time when deaths occur.

I have never seen a checkpoint after 11 at night!! disgraceful.

spongebob

I only ever see them speed trapping along dual carriageways.

I never see them running a trap where slowing the traffic down could make the road safer. The Garda Traffic Corps are the laziest and most bone idle bunch of of sleeveens in the country although some of the motorbike ones are a bit more enthusiastic and proactive.

mike65

Weird! I was thinking exactly the same thought while on the roads today! In a typical week I drive about 800 miles, this week I saw one, just one Garda speed trap which was at the end of the dual carridgway into Cork just by the Silverspring flyover. That would be about typical too, assuming good weather that is. When its dark and wet and thoroughly dangerous to speed they are nowhere to be seen.

Mike.

BKtje

The thing is there has to be plenty of warning for people (ie signs and stuff) and they have to be easily visible. The law is bollox imo, there shouldnt be any warning that you could be fined or that up ahead somewhere theres's a cop with a speed gun. This gives u plenty of time to slow down and then speed up again after. Same with speed cameras.
It gives the offenders too much time to slow down and lets them believe they can beat the system (which face it, they can unless your fairly stupid/unobservant.)

Isnt there a rumour tho that we are getting our own 'highway patrol'' to Police the roads. Perhaps they'd do a better job and take some strain offa the guards?

Sparks

Isnt there a rumour tho that we are getting our own 'highway patrol'' to Police the roads. Perhaps they'd do a better job and take some strain offa the guards?

TomF

I drive in Cork and daily watch cars and trucks go right through red lights. The speed limit is almost never observed. Lower Glanmire Road is a case in point where you nearly get blasted off the road if you keep to the speed limit. I telephoned the Mayfield station once to ask what was the speed limit by Silver Springs Hotel, and the guard who answered said 40. I said I thought so, too, but traffic must be going 60 by that time. His response, well you wouldn't want to obstruct traffic.

Lennoxschips

Of course, if the roads were built properly with no black spots....

MadsL

Saw a speed camera getting put up in Donneybrook today.

Villain

Originally posted by Lennoxschips
Of course, if the roads were built properly with no black spots....

Ya and if my Aunty had balls she'd be my uncle.

MDR

drive from Dublin to Belfast an back at least once a week,
and motorcycle garda with a speed camera is becoming a very regular sight.

ednwireland

guys- you forget its just a revenue generation excercise (just like carbon taxes) if it wasn't theyd be out in remote areas and in accident blackspots. the only places i ever see speed cameras is the longest newest straightest peices of road round donegal town i guess they are just lazy as well.

MDR

As I have said before, not sure if its in this thread, and again I will point out that I don't entirely understand the ins and outs of this myself, but if a person doesn't pass a speed camera sign before they get snagged by a speed camera, its entrapment and therefore you can have the offense over turned in court.

Therefore the Garda has to be certain you passed a speed camera sign before he picks you off with the speed gun, otherwise you can get off, this is obviousily very easy to achieve on motorway's and long straight pieces of national routes, but quite tough to achieve elsewhere, especially in rural areas.

Dampsquid

My girlfriends sister was over hear last week, and i was showing her around ireland. Over the week I had driven about 1400 miles and i had not seen a Garda with a speed gun until the very last day. when I was leaving dublin on the N7. Disgracefull.

Also, what the story about the signs with the speed limit, then with a graphic of a camera underneath. What do they mean? Because I have never seen a speed camera anywhere near one of them

MDR

They mean this is the speed limit, there maybe speed cameras operating in the area ....

Imposter

Originally posted by MDR
As I have said before, not sure if its in this thread, and again I will point out that I don't entirely understand the ins and outs of this myself, but if a person doesn't pass a speed camera sign before they get snagged by a speed camera, its entrapment and therefore you can have the offense over turned in court.

Therefore the Garda has to be certain you passed a speed camera sign before he picks you off with the speed gun, otherwise you can get off, this is obviousily very easy to achieve on motorway's and long straight pieces of national routes, but quite tough to achieve elsewhere, especially in rural areas.

Then how do the vans they had operating on the motorways work? Surely every ticket they issue would be overturned.

MDR

as I said I don't understand the ins and outs of the whole situation, but if it was on a motorway i should imagine there where plenty of speed cameras signs around ....

kdevitt

The law is bollox imo, there shouldnt be any warning that you could be fined or that up ahead somewhere theres's a cop with a speed gun. This gives u plenty of time to slow down and then speed up again after. Same with speed cameras.

The purpose of speed checks should be to get people to slow down at dangerous stretches of road - the cameras should be at known danger spots and painted flourescent yellow - the more warning the better, this would save a hell of a lot more lives that the current scenario where the gardai pick off drivers on our motorways and dual carriage ways.

MDR

The purpose of speed checks should be to get people to slow down at dangerous stretches of road

Granted you want people to slow down on particularily dangerous stretches of road, but that is only tackling half the problem. Whereas I do accept that having very obvious speed cameras on the dangerous bits will make people slow down, it doesn't nothing to re-edumicate the driver in the long term, as soon as they pass the camera they speed up again.

What we need in ireland is a little more drackonian, you need to have speed camera's popping up all the time in completely random places, and then moving somewhere else, keep the driver off guard ...

growler

i know a few years back that individual garda stations had quotas for speeding, tax, parking fines etc. that they had to meet.

so if they were in need of 50 speeding tickets the easiest way was to head for the nearest 5 mile straight stretch of empty road with a 40 limit and wait for the first 50 to wander past.

I'm not sure if that is still the case , but it's obvious the motivation isn't "life saving" per se , it's statistics and quota driven.

Tom F , i know the lower glanmire road very well , and when you come off or on to the dual carriageway it's a 40mph zone, but it shouldn't be as you can quite safely do 60, 70 or 80 mph down that stretch if there are no idiots travelling at 30 in the outside lane, and the cops are always there.

Also you don't see speed traps at night usually as it's overtime, afaik.

MDR

Also you don't see speed traps at night usually as it's overtime, afaik.

Garda are shift workers, it would only be overtime if there wasn't enough Garda on a specific shift to do the job, so they would have to bring Garda in on overtime off another shift ....

BKtje

I must say i agree with MDR's last post completely.

Maybe have static Yellow/Flourescent camera's at Black Spots then a number of mobile cameras dotted around the place as well that keep changing. That way you can have the signs but drivers wont know where exactly along the route the camera will pop up. (should be fariyl easy to do, have the wiring in place at certain spots then just get someone to change the position of the camera periodically) Perhaps even get those 'fake' cameras going as well for so that each wiring pole has a fake camera which can be switched with a real camera from somewhere else on that stretch of road.

Probably an easier way than the above but im just brainstorming atm

Monasette

There are plenty of speed traps around Galway, and God knows there are no straight roads around there. Though you will never see a speed trap on a wet day (and we have plenty of those in the west)

/John

daveg

I spent 3 months in Boston a few years ago. Every mile or so along the road you will clearly see a squad car pulled in checking for speed. Now I know we do not have the Garda man power to adopt the same policy but in my opinion it's all about visability. This is why it does not matter if there are signs up saying speed trap ahead. If we thought there was a good chance of getting caught we would all slow down.

When the points system was introduced 99% of people slowed down. Why? because we were afraid of getting points on our licence and there was a higher number of speed checks on the road. I think everyone will agree that this has nearly deminished.

I have not seen a speedtrap on the roads for at least 4 months. IMHO I think the gardas and the goverment are a fúcking joke when it comes to road deaths. We need to see more garda's carrying out speed checks on our roads so that we might feel there is a chance of getting caught. It seems so simple to me. It must be very complicated for our goverment.

vasch_ro

I regularly see Speed checks at UCD and on the Southern Cross in Bray and it has reformed my behaviour. In relation to the vans at the side of the roads ( known as Gatso's) I believe a change in the road traffic act was made to faciliate this system.

Lets remember there is no point giving out about the ordinary Garda on the street trying to do his/her job if they are in a particular location it is because their superiors have decided this is where they want their manpower and resources located. Gardai are the bottom of the rank structure they do what they are ordered to do to comply with the traffic mangement plan for their area.

Lets remember that if people actually obeyed the laws and thought of the common good life would be an awful lot easier
the simple fact of the matter is that Irish people do not care that 400 plus people die every year on their roads , if they did surely they would slow down, stop at red lights, not park in dangerous places with hazard lights on ????

sovtek

Originally posted by daveg
I spent 3 months in Boston a few years ago. Every mile or so along the road you will clearly see a squad car pulled in checking for speed. Now I know we do not have the Garda man power to adopt the same policy but in my opinion it's all about visability. This is why it does not matter if there are signs up saying speed trap ahead. If we thought there was a good chance of getting caught we would all slow down.

And that means that you will have too many cops with nothing to do...so no prizes for guessing what they will do then
Sorry I'm from Texas and I know how this story ends.
"That guy has a tail light brighter than the other...better pull um over"
It seems to me that Germany doesn't have the problem that Ireland does with traffic deaths yet they have no speed limits on the autobahn.
Not sure why.

Victor

Originally posted by sovtek
they have no speed limits on the autobahn.

This is only on certain sections, you will invariably find their urban / suburban Autobahns with speed limits.

Originally posted by sovtek
It seems to me that Germany doesn't have the problem

If there is one thing Germans do, it is follow the rules. This means their road deaths are 10-20% lower per capita and per km.

Other factors will be most long distance passenger traffic is by train, more goods travel by train and barge. More short journeies are done by tram and bicycle.

Driving standards are on a whole probably slightly better, i.e. driver, road, weather, etc.

bonkey

Originally posted by Victor
If there is one thing Germans do, it is follow the rules. This means their road deaths are 10-20% lower per capita and per km.

Another thing they do......autobahn driving is a mandatory part of your mandatory driving course, to be taken before you get to sit a test.

Simple, and effective.

In Ireland, you're not allowed on to the motorway until after you have a license to drive on it. Brilliant.

jc

sovtek

Originally posted by Victor

Driving standards are on a whole probably slightly better, i.e. driver, road, weather, etc.

I'd say that their roads are much better and would probably have alot to do with it. Many Germans still travel long distances by car.
I think bonkey has a point about learning courses as well. Better courses make better drivers.
I still think speed limits have a limited effect on the death rate. As do more police or cameras. I'd hate to see Ireland become like Texas where they pull you over at the drop of a hat. There are WAY too many police there.

Victor

Originally posted by sovtek
I still think speed limits have a limited effect on the death rate.

Actually they have a fundamental effect. The greater the speed the greater the death rate. The greater the differential speed the greater the death rate. Look at my posts on motors.

sovtek

Originally posted by Victor
Actually they have a fundamental effect. The greater the speed the greater the death rate. The greater the differential speed the greater the death rate. Look at my posts on motors.

Then why doesn't Germany have a worse death rate than Ireland?

Victor

Originally posted by sovtek
Then why doesn't Germany have a worse death rate than Ireland?

One imagines, because they tend to drive, sorry travel, more sensibly.