www.irishspeedtraps.com

OKenora

Instead of payment by checks done, why not pay by speed attributable accidents avoided at blackspots.......oh wait, cos there's not one sane company in the world that would do that as there's no real money to be made.

Paying by number of checks immediately says the company will want the majority of it's cameras in high volume locations. Again the wrong incentives resulting in an imbalance of camera locations to where they see loads of cars rather than where they will slow cars down that need slowing. They will push for a higher than needed percentage of cameras on the M1, M50 etc hoping that the detections there will be high enough to offset the loss making cameras elsewhere that are more needed. Camera placement at a blackspot junction would conceivably be in the direction of maximum traffic flow and not in the direction of the cars that need slowing. If they are going to be told which way to face them as well then whats the point of farming this out to the private sector in the first place?

Any agreement should at least pass a cursory nod at the fact that the point of all this is a reduction in road deaths and injuries and some evaluation of the success in this is needed before anyone gets paid.

bottom line for me would be that the private sector aren't interested in a low profit or loss making venture with no future. After all 100% success in changing drivers attitudes means there is actually no need for the cameras anymore is there ? Private sector = profit and thats the sole reason they are there. Once the profits dry up they will be out of there and I hate to sound totally cynical but once the initial installation costs are out of the way and profits made on the supply and install of the equipment we will either see the private sector lose interest (setting us back again) or we will see exorbitant "maintenance" costs to protect the profit margins. The only way imo to get it right is to remove all links between placing and operating cameras and financial reward.

Cyrus

listen, you dont know how its going to work, you are only guessing

the winning bidder will be paid per hour of monitoring whether one car comes past or 10,000,

i repeat there wont be an incentive based on number of people caught, fact

the system will be designed to improve driver behaviour on dangerous roads.

OKenora

listen, you dont know how its going to work, you are only guessing

the winning bidder will be paid per hour of monitoring whether one car comes past or 10,000,

Maybe I don't and you seem to know a lot more, any chance of a link to this information that backs up your point of view ?

MrPudding

OKenora wrote:

Maybe I don't and you seem to know a lot more, any chance of a link to this information that backs up your point of view ?

First of all, if you read through my posts on this subject you will see we are pretty much of the same opinion.

I do not have a link to any articles about the proposed system, I heard about it on th radio probably over a year ago.

They were very clear on the subject. There was going to be strict rules governing the locations of the checks. The way they explained it was the operators would be asked to carry out a certain number of checks in a certain area and that is what they were paid for.

When they explained it they said the operators would be paid per check not per hour or per person caught. This means that should they be requested to do 2% of their daily checks on the M50 but they acually did 10% they would not get paid for the extra 8%.

Ths system, assuming it is implimented, should mean that the operators will not get paid for catching people, and further, have nothing to gain from hiding in a high volume area shooting fish in a barrel.

MrP

Rovi

MrPudding wrote:

I do not have a link to any articles about the proposed system, I heard about it on th radio probably over a year ago.

Here's an article about it from the Irish Times dated Wednesday, October 11, 2006-
http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/motors/2006/1011/1160340203509.html

mike65

You guys should listen to the radio a bit more! The PR chappie from the road safety authority (or whatever) said on Tom McGurks show that the contract was being run on a time basis not the rate of attrition.

Mike.

Victor

fletch wrote:

I disagree....it would be very handy for those moments when you slip a few kph above the speed limit and you get done.

Msot people done for speeding are doing more than 20km/h over the relevant limit.

Victor

OKenora wrote:

In Ireland a speeding cameras effectiveness is judged by how many tickets it issues.

Do you have anything to back this up?

So why run the majority of speed cameras on roads where less than 2% of fatalities occur.

Do you have anything to back up the first half of your statement?

OKenora wrote:

UK road safety has been shown to be improved, Irish road safety has taken many setbacks. General European road safety has reduced the amount of fatalities at a rate equal to or exceeding the rate you would expect based solely on improvements in car safety. Irish road fatalities however are near as high now as they were 10 years ago. In the case of SVA's they are rising still......

The first 6 months of this year point to a final death toll of perhaps 310 thats 20-25% lower than the typical figure over the last ten years and hopefully the lowest in 40 years. But I don’t count my chickens early.

This bad drivers argument is supported by over 61% of accidents happening in the dry, near 52% of them happening on straight roads and 88% of our accidents attributable to driver error.

I think what this points to is only one factor being necessary to cause an accident.

It's time to address the real problems in a suitable manner. The NRA should stop boasting about us being 7th in the league table of fatal road accidents in Europe (which is pathetic tbh) and start aiming for being 1st or 2nd like Sweden and the UK are.

Road safety has been taken away from the NRA and the RSA is adopting the Swedish Vägverket’s Vision Zero.

“The idea of Vision Zero is not zero crashes, but rather zero fatalities and serious injuries.

A key tenet of this approach: "It's not the accident that kills--it's the kinetic energy. The biomechanical tolerance of human tissue is the limiting factor for the road transport system." But people do not perceive kinetic energy, or the energy of motion. What to do? Separate people from sources of kinetic energy.”

But who gets the proceeds of the fines to offset their costs ? Oh yes the private company.....

No, the exchequer gets the money, same as any other fine. The private operator will get paid to carry out, I think 6,000 camera hours per month. That’s 200 hours per day or an average of 8 cameras, although I imagine the peak number of cameras will be much higher.

MrPudding wrote:

The next step would be to officially release the location of the fixed cameras and the areas where the mobiles will operate, this would increaee the effectiveness of the cameras, though obviously reducing the revenue generated considerably.

Note the basis of the checkpoints will be here: http://www.garda.ie/angarda/statistics98/cpz_June2007.xls I don’t think that’s the final version as some sections are blanks, but it’s a start.

OKenora wrote:

Instead of payment by checks done, why not pay by speed attributable accidents avoided at blackspots

While that is a suitable metric for society, it isn’t a suitable metric for paying someone.

Paying by number of checks immediately says the company will want the majority of it's cameras in high volume locations.

The company doesn’t decide the locations.

Again the wrong incentives resulting in an imbalance of camera locations to where they see loads of cars rather than where they will slow cars down that need slowing. They will push for a higher than needed percentage of cameras on the M1, M50 etc hoping that the detections there will be high enough to offset the loss making cameras elsewhere that are more needed. Camera placement at a blackspot junction would conceivably be in the direction of maximum traffic flow and not in the direction of the cars that need slowing. If they are going to be told which way to face them as well then whats the point of farming this out to the private sector in the first place?

Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong….. in fact, little of what you say in the entire thread is correct.

Once the profits dry up they will be out of there and I hate to sound totally cynical but once the initial installation costs are out of the way and profits made on the supply and install of the equipment we will either see the private sector lose interest (setting us back again) or we will see exorbitant "maintenance" costs to protect the profit margins.

The company isn’t getting (full) reimbursement of set-up costs. They are being paid for delivery of service only.

The only way imo to get it right is to remove all links between placing and operating cameras and financial reward.

Well there has to be some link. Company provide X hours of camera usage at our direction and get paid Y amount. Quite simple. Quite effective.

I.S.T.

Victor wrote:

Note the basis of the checkpoints will be here: http://www.garda.ie/angarda/statistics98/cpz_June2007.xls I don’t think that’s the final version as some sections are blanks, but it’s a start.

Victor, do you know if these statistics are gathered over 10 years. It is not clear from that spreadsheet from what period those statists are gathered? The garda site says...

Accordingly an extensive analysis has been carried out by An Garda Siochana in conjunction with the National Roads Authority, Ordnance Survey Ireland and the Local Government Computer Services Board with regard to collision history on our road network over the last 10 years.

Victor

IrishSpeedTraps wrote:

Victor, do you know if these statistics are gathered over 10 years. It is not clear from that spreadsheet from what period those statists are gathered? The garda site says...

I don't know. but I will be making inquiries.

olearydc

Hi

Just regards the link

http://www.garda.ie/angarda/statisti...z_June2007.xls

And the stats the Garda have..
IS this accurate, are all crashes on the sheet,even the ones in the City (cork city)
because the is a road next to me which has a crash approx once every month at least (and these are the ones I see), the Garda are there most of the time.

There have not been any serious crashes thankfully, but I have seen loads crashes and a few write off's

Victor

That isn't a final version.

It only counts fatalities and serious injuries (i.e. hospitalisation). Material damage accidents are on average cheap.

I.S.T.

Victor wrote:

That isn't a final version.

It only counts fatalities and serious injuries (i.e. hospitalisation). Material damage accidents are on average cheap.

Did you find out what period of time the figures are gathered over?