Unmarked Garda cars catching out motorists!!!

Car Mad

A FLEET of unmarked Garda cars, video cameras and speed detection devices is to be deployed next year in the fight against road carnage.

The high-powered cars will be deployed as part of a major crackdown on reckless driving - which Garda chiefs rank as second only to drink-driving as a killer.

The specially-modified vehicles are to be purchased and may also carry equipment mounted on their rears capable of displaying messages telling motorists to slow down and stop.

Uniformed members of the Garda Traffic Corp manning the fleet will blend in with civilian traffic on motorways countrywide.

Once they spot a motorist driving recklessly or identify any other type of offender, they will be able to activate sirens and flashing lights hidden at the front and back of their covert patrol car.

The head of the Garda Traffic Corps, Assistant Commissioner, Eddie Rock, revealed initial details of plans for the fleet at the launch of a new motorcycle safety advertisement yesterday.

The Commissioner said that reckless driving was even more of a problem than speeding.

Unmarked patrol cars of the type which the gardai plan to introduce next year have been in operation north of the border for some time. The PSNI cars carry calibrated speedometers capable of detecting the exact speed of a vehicle. The head of the Garda Traffic Bureau, Chief Supt John Farrelly, said crashes were caused by reckless drivers who displayed deliberate ignorance towards others.

"People would tend to stereotype but a range of people can be responsible. It's the person who decides that they can beat the traffic system. The person who passes on the left and comes in on the right," he added.

National Safety Council Chairman Eddie Shaw said it was habitual road offenders who would be targeted by the new fleet rather than ordinary day-to-day motorists, he said.

But he warned that road safety in Ireland was "not in a good position" this year against the backdrop of an average of 32 people dying every month.

"If you go back to 2003, which is arguably now the best year of our the road safety programme, we were at 28 people per month. In 1997 we were at 39 people, so the situation has improved from 1997 to 2005 but we have disimproved since 2003," he added.

"The reason is that we have lost the momentum of investment in road safety. The Government did significant things in in 1998, 1999 and 2000 which had the result of driving down the number of casualties and culminated in the introduction of penalty points in 2002.

"When penalty points were introduced, we then had the four lowest months of road deaths in modern times but the effect of that quickly went away because we did not have the infrastructure of enforcement that was required to support it. It is exactly that infrastructure that is now being planned."
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Found this somewhere on my web travels:cool:
Opinions please.I think its a great idea as long as the catch repeating offenders and not people that make honest mistakes:rolleyes:
Also this could be bad due to gards getting power mad going out trying to egg on ''boy racers'' and then pull em.Anyway discuss;)

Gatster

will blend in with civilian traffic on motorways countrywide

Marvellous, just where all the carnage is :rolleyes:

Car Mad

Gatster wrote:

Marvellous, just where all the carnage is :rolleyes:

ok so wel tell em blend in with the trees someone is going to crash into at 3 in the morning:D

KTRIC

Too little , too late.


Is that an election I see over there !!

TwoShedsJackson

They shouldl drive up and down the Belgard and Cookstown roads after 9 at night, any night. That's a guaranteed twenty speeders and/or boy racers right there.

drdre

KTRIC wrote:

Too little , too late.


Is that an election I see over there !!

Yes you ar right,They donot need to be on the motorways they need to be on the country roads and they need to do sport checks outside pubs and on main roads to stop drink drivers who cause accidents.

maidhc

Car Mad wrote:

The head of the Garda Traffic Corps, Assistant Commissioner, Eddie Rock, revealed initial details of plans for the fleet at the launch of a new motorcycle safety advertisement yesterday.

Eddie's Rockets?

craichoe

Hellooooo ...... Theres more cars on the road since 2003 .... since we don't have a public transport system to speak of, of course the stats are going to get worse!

Nonetheless i think its a good idea theres lots of crazy wan*ers on the road, hopefully this will catch out a few of em.

UrbanFox

More road safety bollocks.

It all comes down to one word - ATTITUDE.

old boy

very little deaths on the motorways, good income earner tho, country roads after midnight, now thats a different kettle of fish,

peasant

I for one am looking forward to this.

There have been many occassions (on N roads) where I wished a cop would show up and pull out that stupid, suicidal fecker that just endangerd himself and the occupants of about five other cars by overtaking like there was no tomorrow.

Equally, I'm hoping that they will start to pull all the muppets that trundle along at 60 km/h in the middle of the road, with queues behind them well into the next county.

gyppo

peasant wrote:

I for one am looking forward to this.

There have been many occassions (on N roads) where I wished a cop would show up and pull out that stupid, suicidal fecker that just endangerd himself and the occupants of about five other cars by overtaking like there was no tomorrow.

Equally, I'm hoping that they will start to pull all the muppets that trundle along at 60 km/h in the middle of the road, with queues behind them well into the next county.

Seconded.

oleras

peasant wrote:

I for one am looking forward to this.

There have been many occassions (on N roads) where I wished a cop would show up and pull out that stupid, suicidal fecker that just endangerd himself and the occupants of about five other cars by overtaking like there was no tomorrow.

Equally, I'm hoping that they will start to pull all the muppets that trundle along at 60 km/h in the middle of the road, with queues behind them well into the next county.

Good point, but its more vehicles and equiptment, not men and women, if they are not there now good chance they wont be there in 12 months.

Sizzler

Hooting fish in a barrel springs to mind I doubt if these lads will need 3 years of training to fanny around in an Impreza / Evo etc. just to pull over a motorist who had just made a dangerous maneouvre or was doing 125kmh on the M50

The tax man

drdre wrote:

and they need to do sport checks outside pubs and on main roads to stop drink drivers who cause accidents.

LOL:D Typo I know, but if you drink and drive don't wear a tracksuit or a football jersey.
And according to the Herald the force have received BMW 530ds and 525is to combat high speed chases on the M1,M6 and M7 against the criminals car of choice the Lexus 430 cause the BMW is 20kph faster.:D

Seth Brundle

Regarding the non motorway roads etc, read this before commenting:
http://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/?jp=MHAUAUEYQLAU

mike65

Under the scheme, the majority of speed checks are set to be carried out on secondary routes. It is believed the cameras will be hidden in unmarked vans along these roads.

Hmmmm, I hope they pick thier parking spot carefully.

Mike.

overdriver

You back in the moderators chair Mike or has someone forgotten to change your tag to "civilian"?


Where things are privatised, expect the goalposts to shift considerably. Cameras just inside the speed limit change zones, etc etc

mike65

Yep I'm in the backwash of Commuting/Transport!

As for unmarked vans, well thats not really true is it? Any van will be fairly new, almost certainly white and quite large sat in a spot where it can see but not be seen too quickly. Someone had a little picture quiz "Spot the camera van" a while back maybe they should dig that thread out.

Mike.

Del2005

mike65 wrote:

Yep I'm in the backwash of Commuting/Transport!

As for unmarked vans, well thats not really true is it? Any van will be fairly new, almost certainly white and quite large sat in a spot where it can see but not be seen too quickly. Someone had a little picture quiz "Spot the camera van" a while back maybe they should dig that thread out.

Mike.

Also they'll have to have the red/orange reflecting tape on the back, Health & Safety won't let people park on the side of dangerous roads without it!!

But by the time you see the van they have you anyway.

Seth Brundle

The vans have a range of about 50m so if you are being observant you are likely to spot them beforre being in range.

Raskolnikov

Is this not happening already? My brother was pulled over for skipping an orange light by an unmarked car. Got a fine and two penalty points for something that nearly every motorists attempts :rolleyes:

mike65

In the spirit of Top Gear

http://www.galaxygraphics.co.uk/games/ck2a.php

Mike.

hi5

Car Mad wrote:

Also this could be bad due to gards getting power mad going out trying to egg on ''boy racers'' and then pull em.Anyway discuss;)

From experiance its the boy racers boy racers that do the egging on,just drive a more powerful car than them on the speed limit and they cant resist the temptation to overtake usually illegally and after a period of tailgating,I hope they all get banned;) .

Seth Brundle

As 'boy racers' is such a vague definition, I'm ignoring hi5's post.

Biro

peasant wrote:

I for one am looking forward to this.

There have been many occassions (on N roads) where I wished a cop would show up and pull out that stupid, suicidal fecker that just endangerd himself and the occupants of about five other cars by overtaking like there was no tomorrow.

Equally, I'm hoping that they will start to pull all the muppets that trundle along at 60 km/h in the middle of the road, with queues behind them well into the next county.

I'd agree with this, and would add to the list the tail-gating community. Those a$$holes who love to see what it's like to be in the back seat of the car in front.

Orchard Rebel

Although I'm broadly in favour, two things worry me about this.

Firstly, from a justice point of view, who will oversee the private companies to make sure that the machinery is properly calibrated and that sharp practices don't come in. Will there be unannounced Garda spot checks, data analysis etc? Given that the bidders for tenders include some of the country's most notorious clamping companies, it would be nice to see them subject to proper and rigourous regulation.

Which brings me to my second point - the temptation to make this a Revenue exercise, either by the private company or the government. In other words, if a motorist is caught doing 0.1 kph above the speed limit will he be fined. Currently, the guards appear to operate a common sense policy which allows a certain amount of leeway. A private company working for profit may not adopt such a strategy.

I've been wondering for a while whether it would be preferable to remove the temptation altogether. In other words, to remove any monetary fine and compensate by increasing the penalty points for an offence (perhaps on a scale proportionate to the offence) and a mandatory increase in the driver's insurance (say by 25% per offence).

It would be a good test of the motives of all concerned. Somehow though, I don't think the companies/government would want to give up the revenue.

is_that_so

Orchard Rebel wrote:

Although I'm broadly in favour, two things worry me about this.

Firstly, from a justice point of view, who will oversee the private companies to make sure that the machinery is properly calibrated and that sharp practices don't come in. Will there be unannounced Garda spot checks, data analysis etc? Given that the bidders for tenders include some of the country's most notorious clamping companies, it would be nice to see them subject to proper and rigourous regulation.

Which brings me to my second point - the temptation to make this a Revenue exercise, either by the private company or the government. In other words, if a motorist is caught doing 0.1 kph above the speed limit will he be fined. Currently, the guards appear to operate a common sense policy which allows a certain amount of leeway. A private company working for profit may not adopt such a strategy.

I've been wondering for a while whether it would be preferable to remove the temptation altogether. In other words, to remove any monetary fine and compensate by increasing the penalty points for an offence (perhaps on a scale proportionate to the offence) and a mandatory increase in the driver's insurance (say by 25% per offence).

It would be a good test of the motives of all concerned. Somehow though, I don't think the companies/government would want to give up the revenue.

The revenue for the winning company is not based on numbers caught but number of scans thus ensuring that they are not on a commission basis.
The Gardai themselves insist that it is not a revenue exercise and that many of the cameras be located at known blackspots and not used UCD/M50/M1/Cloghran roundabout etc.

I agree with the idea of increasing scales of penalty points as they do in Germany. I recall one case of a woman doing 80 mph in a 40 mph zone before the points came in , because she was in a "hurry". That spells instant disqualification to me.

Doc Farrell

I saw a new white BMW 5 series pull over a new Land Rover Discovery on the motorway between UCD and Stillorgan. I think the Land Rover driver was confused because the garda's car was using quite discreet blue flashing lights and didn't sound its alarm. Also the young driver was driving a Land Rover 07 and one simply doesnt pull one of those over!

He was pulled over for crossing 2 lanes without indicating. I was behind him in the fast lane doing, alledgedly, 15kms over the speed limit. Ironically I was driving a lovely old Camry that I think was previously owned by members of the special branch!

The new Garda cars really are rather nice. Clearly our strong economy allows young drivers to drive cars that are much faster than their intellects and anything that can be done to bring home this point to them is a good thing. I am not bashing young drivers nor fast cars, only those who show no common courtesy to other road users.