Sneaky Cop on Templeogue Road!

Golferx

Reginald Bumpy Gut wrote:

I don't want to get caught up in a personal wrangle with you (as you seem to perfer to get personal with your posts) but are you seriously suggesting that it's the Gardá's fault that people were speeding "at maximum speed"? ................................

I didn't suggest that. But, by hiding in bushes, they are not slowing traffic down. By standing on the pavement, in full vis gear, he would make the roads a hell of a lot safer.

Reginald Bumpy Gut wrote:

..................... It is not the responsibilty of the Gardá to slow the traffic; that's the responsibility of you and I as we drive.

I disagree. The Gardai have a responsibility to enforce the Laws of the Land and they have a responsibility to help make the roads safer. While the primary onus is on the driver, the Gardai do have a role and a duty there too.

GreeBo

HelterSkelter wrote:

GreenNBo

:rolleyes: ok, so I am arguing with a 6 year old, I will remember that in future.

HelterSkelter wrote:

how about this for a novel idea, put the speed cameras on the roads with the highest accident rates.

Do you want to change peoples driving habits or just have photographs of a car seconds before it crahses? If a road has 5 cars a day but has had a couple of accidents in the last couple of years then its not worth putting a camera there, at best you *might* slow down 1 or two cars on that stretch of road.
We want people to slow down and drive properly on all roads, if someone obeys the limits and drives sensible on main roads then they are more likey to do the same on the odd rural etc road they are on.

HelterSkelter wrote:

As far as I can see they are currently on the roads with the highest traffic volumes and lowest accident rates.

Naturally roads with the highest volumes will have lower rates of accidents, percentages dont ya know.

Golferx

Keith C wrote:

A blackspot denotes someone died there, if a camera is put there it may have saved a life & may in the future save another (mine or yours who knows) so i wouldnt call that a waste.

The M50 is not a known blackspot, yes there are tipps & small accidents but most of these are during rush hour & the only people hurt are the insurance companies.
Lets get the speed cameras out in rural areas where fatalities occur & then put up the money generators, not the other way around.

The single biggest/most successful item I've seen for slowing people down is the roadside sign which flashes if someone is exceeding the speed limit. These signs have a RADAR detector and indicate the speed of your car as you approach, flashing if you're above a set level. This is effective because it shows the driver what they are actually doing and are not a draconian, selective, enforcement of the Law, catching out innocent drivers who might be driving perfectly safely but exceeding a limit.

HelterSkelter

GreeBo wrote:

:rolleyes: ok, so I am arguing with a 6 year old, I will remember that in future.

Do you want to change peoples driving habits or just have photographs of a car seconds before it crahses? If a road has 5 cars a day but has had a couple of accidents in the last couple of years then its not worth putting a camera there, at best you *might* slow down 1 or two cars on that stretch of road.
We want people to slow down and drive properly on all roads, if someone obeys the limits and drives sensible on main roads then they are more likey to do the same on the odd rural etc road they are on.

So let me get this straight, you want to put cameras on all roads to ensure people will drive at or below the limit at all times?

GreeBo wrote:

Naturally roads with the highest volumes will have lower rates of accidents, percentages dont ya know.

That is not true, you are contradicting yourself...

GreeBo wrote:

If a road has 5 cars a day but has had a couple of accidents in the last couple of years

That implies the road has an accident rate of almost 50%, yet has a low volume of traffic

Marcus.Aurelius

GreeBo wrote:

:rolleyes: ok, so I am arguing with a 6 year old, I will remember that in future.

Do you want to change peoples driving habits or just have photographs of a car seconds before it crahses? If a road has 5 cars a day but has had a couple of accidents in the last couple of years then its not worth putting a camera there, at best you *might* slow down 1 or two cars on that stretch of road.
We want people to slow down and drive properly on all roads, if someone obeys the limits and drives sensible on main roads then they are more likey to do the same on the odd rural etc road they are on.

Naturally roads with the highest volumes will have lower rates of accidents, percentages dont ya know.

Greebo, for the love of God, please read the posts. RSA states unequivocally that only 0.8% of deaths happen on motorways. And you've seen the M50 at rush hour. Percentages don't ya know!!!!!!!:D

GreeBo

Golferx wrote:

The Gardai have a responsibility to enforce the Laws of the Land

Golferx wrote:

However, for you, the simple fact of exceeding some arbitrary number lenders their activity illegal.

Golferx wrote:

You fail to see how a good driver can make safe progress in our country by driving safely, regardless of speed limits.

Anyone else confused?

Marcus.Aurelius

GreeBo wrote:

Anyone else confused?

No

Are you going to respond to my argument or are you just going to restate your original one and ignore us all as usual? Seriously Greebo, we want a proper discussion here.

GreeBo

HelterSkelter wrote:

So let me get this straight, you want to put cameras on all roads to ensure people will drive at or below the limit at all times?

No, I think there should be random, unannounced cameras on roads that contain the most amount of traffic aswell as less traveleld roads. The busier roads having priority.

HelterSkelter wrote:

That is not true, you are contradicting yourself...

If roads (a) and (b) have 1 crash per 100 cars but road (a) has 100 cars per hour and road (b) has 100 cars per month then I would put a camera on road (a), where would you put it?

HelterSkelter wrote:

That implies the road has an accident rate of almost 50%, yet has a low volume of traffic

how do you figure that?
5 cars per day = 664300 per year = 1328600 in !a couple of years"
so thats 1 crash per 664300 cars aka 0.00000015%. No?


Bottom line is I think cameras should be put in front of the most drivers, not the most crashes.

Marcus.Aurelius

Then there is no point. Irish drivers are not stupid. They want a GOOD reason to slow down, like dangerous roads with APPROPRIATE speed limits set and then enforced. Existing limits on rural roads (you know, where people are actually dying) are too high, reduce them and set up cameras to CHANGE behaviour, not rake in the millions for a nice juicy DOJ budget and a nice thick RSA report.

If the point of cameras is as they say, i.e. to change behaviour, then they must be on roads where behaviour is in need of change, i.e. where people are dying, i.e. rural roads (RSA Statistics!!!!)

GreeBo

maoleary wrote:

Are you going to respond to my argument

What argument of yours am I ignoring?
The last post of yours I saw you agreed with me:o

HelterSkelter

GreeBo wrote:

No, I think there should be random, unannounced cameras on roads that contain the most amount of traffic aswell as less traveleld roads. The busier roads having priority.


If roads (a) and (b) have 1 crash per 100 cars but road (a) has 100 cars per hour and road (b) has 100 cars per month then I would put a camera on road (a), where would you put it?


how do you figure that?
5 cars per day = 664300 per year = 1328600 in !a couple of years"
so thats 1 crash per 664300 cars aka 0.00000015%. No?


Bottom line is I think cameras should be put in front of the most drivers, not the most crashes.

Ok, i was wrong but you are way off!
5 cars a day = 1825 a year = 3650 in a couple of years

Marcus.Aurelius

GreeBo wrote:

What argument of yours am I ignoring?
The last post of yours I saw you agreed with me:o

Yes, but you failed to argue the point of reducing limits on rural roads and using the cameras to change behaviour rather than to rake in cash from high-volume (i.e. max revenue) motorways.

Don't you think its cynical to target roads with low numbers of road deaths, as declared by the RSA? Shouldn't we target roads where people are actually dying? The R roads?

GreeBo

maoleary wrote:

They want a GOOD reason to slow down, like dangerous roads with APPROPRIATE speed limits

Like roads with houses on them or road works on the M50?
Problem is that too many people will always want to (and think they can) drive faster than the posted limit.
If we could rely on people driving at appropriate speeds then we wouldnt need to reduce the limits on rural roads (we still should as they are crazy, but we wouldnt *need* to)
Until we change this behaviour we must use the stick to force people to stick to the agreed limits.

maoleary wrote:

If the point of cameras is as they say, i.e. to change behaviour, then they must be on roads where behaviour is in need of change, i.e. where people are dying, i.e. rural roads (RSA Statistics!!!!)

a) but it will take too long and too many cameras to try and educate drivers as we have so many of these crappy roads, unless you are going to blanket the roads you will miss the majority of drivers and fail in your goal.
b) death isnt the only important statistic IMO

GreeBo

HelterSkelter wrote:

Ok, i was wrong but you are way off!
5 cars a day = 1825 a year = 3650 in a couple of years

damn windows calc
decided to change from 365 to 364 days but the old "clear" wasnt as successful as one would have hoped!

Marcus.Aurelius

GreeBo wrote:

Like roads with houses on them or road works on the M50?
Problem is that too many people will always want to (and think they can) drive faster than the posted limit.
If we could rely on people driving at appropriate speeds then we wouldnt need to reduce the limits on rural roads (we still should as they are crazy, but we wouldnt *need* to)
Until we change this behaviour we must use the stick to force people to stick to the agreed limits.


a) but it will take too long and too many cameras to try and educate drivers as we have so many of these crappy roads, unless you are going to blanket the roads you will miss the majority of drivers and fail in your goal.
b) death isnt the only important statistic IMO

Absolutely right Greebo, but I think we need to change our speed limits to an intelligent system before we go nuts on cameras.

GreeBo

maoleary wrote:

Yes, but you failed to argue the point of reducing limits on rural roads

actually I first brought it up on page 2 or something so there is no argument there.

maoleary wrote:

Don't you think its cynical to target roads with low numbers of road deaths, as declared by the RSA? Shouldn't we target roads where people are actually dying? The R roads?

I look at it differently I guess, to me it makes sense to put speed cameras on the roads where the most cars are speeding.
Yes people are speeding on rural roads and yes the roads are probably more dangerous but I think it will take far too long to change driver habits using these roads to "punish" people.

The problem is that anyone who thinks its safe to do 80kph on the Powerscourt road will continue to do 80kph whether the limit is lowered or not.

Seth Brundle

Everybody be mature and nice to one another - Im close to closing this!

astraboy

Greebo, why not put cameras on rural roads? I'm all for them outside schools, housing estates etc, but placing them on motorways(when road works are not taking place) will not save any lives. People can reasonably, at times exceed the limit on motorways if conditions are right. Catching someone breaking the motorway limit at 5/8/10Kph over the limit if they are driving within their own limits, the limits of their car and road conditions will not save lives, placing cameras on dangerous roads might.

Also, if we had better driver training people would be far better able to select appropiate speed for the conditions. In a perfect world everyone would drive using appropiate speed for the conditions, roads traffic volumes and the car they are driving. Then speed limits would not be needed at all, as people would self regulate. Some people would drive on motorways at 120Kph, some at 110Kph and some at 130kph. Of course this is a fantasy, but placing cameras in fish in a barrel loactions where small infractions of the limts are not dangerous is not going to save lives when motorways are alreay the safest roads in the country.

Better to focus on the roads where people are actually getting killed and injured, don't you agree?

astraboy

Golferx wrote:

The single biggest/most successful item I've seen for slowing people down is the roadside sign which flashes if someone is exceeding the speed limit. These signs have a RADAR detector and indicate the speed of your car as you approach, flashing if you're above a set level. This is effective because it shows the driver what they are actually doing and are not a draconian, selective, enforcement of the Law, catching out innocent drivers who might be driving perfectly safely but exceeding a limit.

I've seen and driven past these in other countries. Quite effective to be honest. There was one sign near where I lived last summer and the speed limit was 30mph. The sign was at the bottom of a hill in a residental area. I never saw anyone doing over 25 when I past it.........

GreeBo

astraboy wrote:

Greebo, why not put cameras on rural roads?

I have no problem with them on rural roads, I just dont think it will be effective at controlling speeding unless you can get blanket coverage, otherwise you are just not catching enough people.

astraboy wrote:

People can reasonably, at times exceed the limit on motorways if conditions are right. Catching someone breaking the motorway limit at 5/8/10Kph over the limit if they are driving within their own limits, the limits of their car and road conditions will not save lives, placing cameras on dangerous roads might.

The same can be applied for rural roads, there are places where 80 is arguably "fine".
Making all drivers aware of their speed and their speeding should reduce road deaths on all roads. The easiet/quickest way to do this is on a Motorway where you have more exposure to more drivers.

astraboy wrote:

Of course this is a fantasy, but placing cameras in fish in a barrel loactions where small infractions of the limts are not dangerous is not going to save lives when motorways are alreay the safest roads in the country.

Using derogatory labels doesnt nullify the point of the process. You might not like it as you think the speed you are doing is appropriate but until the laws change you need to adhere to them.

astraboy wrote:

Better to focus on the roads where people are actually getting killed and injured, don't you agree?

Better to teach more drivers to stop speeding than get them piecemeal one by one on rural roads.?

HelterSkelter

astraboy wrote:

I've seen and driven past these in other countries. Quite effective to be honest. There was one sign near where I lived last summer and the speed limit was 30mph. The sign was at the bottom of a hill in a residental area. I never saw anyone doing over 25 when I past it.........

There's one on the Long Mile Road near the school. I always tend to slow down if I am driving above the limit when I see it flashing my speed at me.

astraboy

Greebo, when will you stop focusing on speed as the SOLE road safety issue. It is but one facet of raod safety. You just seem to be interested in "catching" people. Catching people out just over the limit makes little sense to me. The whole point of road safety is to save lives and reduce accidents, you just want people to drive within the limits because you do and punish them if they infringe, no matter if this has no impact on road deaths. I find this a very closed point of view, perhaps you should read up on what ar the major causes of accidents both in Ireland and around the world.

"Catching enough people" is just a money making exercise. Why not pull them out of their cars alltogether and kick the heads off them? This might work too.:rolleyes:

O ya and "fish in a barrel" is not a derogatory label, in fact it was used by GTC, a traffic cop on another thread. Also, the people on motorways war generally urban dewellers, people on the dangerous backroads rural. Tell me how more M50 cameras is going to reduce the road deaths in Cork or Kerry?!

GreeBo

astraboy wrote:

Greebo, when will you stop focusing on speed as the SOLE road safety issue. It is but one facet of raod safety

that has an impact on everything else.
Anything you do at speed increased the danger and the seriousness of any accidents.

astraboy wrote:

"Catching enough people" is just a money making exercise.

Catching enough people to change their habits.
Surely the reason you are in favour of putting cameras on rural roads is to change peoples habits? If not then what exactly is your point?

astraboy wrote:

O ya and "fish in a barrel" is not a derogatory label, in fact it was used by GTC, a traffic cop on another thread.

That doesnt mean its not a derogatory label. If Jesus himself comes down and calls me a "mick" then its not suddenly ok because Jesus does it.

astraboy

Does the phrase fish in a barrel offend you? Poor greebo.

Anyway, the idea of cameras on dangerous rural roads is to enforce people to slow down. Putting a hidden camera on the M50, I sorry, will not seriously alter driver behaviour. And "at speed" and speeding are different things, someone can be driving at speed but within the limit. If you want to alter driver behaviour for the better why not driver education? I always find encourging people to do something, and educating them why, would be far more effective then bashing them over the head with numerous tiny speed infractions and having stalinist style enforcement of speed limits with armies of gastos. For the MOTHERLAND greebo!:D

Seth Brundle

GreeBo wrote:

That doesnt mean its not a derogatory label. If Jesus himself comes down and calls me a "mick" then its not suddenly ok because Jesus does it.

Im not sure how you interpreted it to be derogatory. Its a phrase used to indicate that something is easy. How Jesus being racist came into it is beyond me.


Anyhow, back on topic...

Andrewf20

I reckon cops on the beat is better than static cameras. Camera may nab people breaking speed limits but it will not catch dangerous driving under the limit!

1 other thing, I am not phased by these back roads with 80km/hr speed limits because more often than not, these roads open up to the point where 80 km/h feels fine in places.

Shield

We would get into sooo much trouble if we were seen hiding behind lampposts like this, and I'm pretty sure she would too if her superiors seen these pictures.

There are guidelines which must be followed for these type of detections, and this evidence indicates she hasn't followed them.

If anyone reading this thread was caught by her and were to produce these pictures to a judge, I guarantee you the case would be struck out.

Roll on Garda Ombudsman...

jackofalltrades

Making all drivers aware of their speed and their speeding should reduce road deaths on all roads.The easiet/quickest way to do this is on a Motorway where you have more exposure to more drivers.

Your working on the assumption that people who drive on motorways drive on R roads aswell. I live in Dublin and find most of my mileage is motorways or urban roads, I rarely use R roads and I'd say a lot of poeple here are the same way, and when they do come across an R road they'd generally drive a lot slower than the people who live in that area, as their unfamiliar with the road.

Most people don't speed on the motorways due to there being a high enough speed limit as it is and as soon as you but a Garda car on a Motorway it creates a wave of people slamming on the brakes.

People speed where they can get away with it, and they can get away with it on R roads where there's little enforcement, and no amount of "fish in a barrel" speed checks are going to solve this problem.

UrbanFox

Sneaky Cop ?

Do you mean an effective policeman ?

GTC

Hilarious thread, love the pictures. Would you all like us to stick up signs just in case you are speeding?