Got caught speeding

Keith C

Why dont we start a srameen vs irish speed traps sticky cause its always those two going head to head.
Srameen had someone close to them badly injured/killed from a speeding driver so his/her view will always tar people speeding with the one brush whether its someone doind 31kmh in a 30kmh zone or 150kmh in 120 kmh zone.
Gets a tad boring all these repetitive arguments :rolleyes:

milltown

smashey wrote:

Jaysus, it's not the end of the world. I also got caught recently at 11.15pm and guess what? I was speeding and i'm gonna pay the fine.

You're gonna do WHAT??!! :eek:

I'm another fan of the average speed system. I find the fixed cameras very hard on my brakes and tyres. With the average speed cameras I can pull in after the first camera and have a cigarette/smoke some crack/eat a baby and then tear off again.

Seth Brundle

Javon Billions Hairbrush wrote:

At least they would slow down over a distance of many miles rather than for a number of yards as we have with our fixed cameras or mobile units. That's the whole point! Slowing down for a single camera location achieves nothing if the driver puts the boot down for the remainder of the journey. With mobile unadvertised speedchecks there is, if nothing else a deterrent, in that you don't know where you may get caught. Average speed monitoring is certainly the way to go.

I disagree (yet again).
You seem to think its better to keep the cameras hidden. As the gardai themselves admit, the best camera is one that catches nobody!
Making cameras visible will have far more benefits than drawbacks such as:
1. it will slow drivers down at that point which was deemed dangerous
2. it will remind the many drivers who drive oblivious to everyting around them about where they are
3. it will remind drivers that there are checks out there
If you look at the fixed cameras out there, more cars continue to drive at the speed at which they passed the camera at, than speed up.
The reality is that everyone knows that a visible presence is far better than a covert one. Several people are oblivious to the fact that they could be driving beside an unmarked car*. If this was a marked car, would they take the same risks?
The Irish system is to allow speed cameras to become hidden by allowing hedges to shield the back of them. Contrast this to the UK (including the SPECS system near Newry) where the cameras are yellow and quite visible.
Our authorities believe that a punitive system is far better than a preventative one! They are (IMO) wrong!
The only benefit of covert cameras (e.g. Gatso vans) is that they catch those speeding who are oblivious to everything around them. This does not mean that they catch the worst speeders. As I have said several times before, I speed quite frequently but I still haven't got points as (I reckon) its because I tend to be quite observant.


* I have lost count of the amount of times recently I have driven beside an unmarked car that just ignores drivers blatantly breaking the rules of the road (phone usage, speeding, driving in bus lane...)

Volvoboy

We all do stuff on the roads we shoudnt, there about a month ago i got 1 Penalty Point and €60 fine for making a illegall left turn, pissed off, but i pissed in my cornflakes and i had to eat them, and that was on the tuesday and then i got clamped (again:mad: ) on the saturday night, that was €140 for a weeks motoring, that didnt inclue tax, ins or petrol. Do the crime, do the time,,,, well yanowhoreimean!!:)




-VB-

smemon

If there were two cars in a row going past at 120km/hr, i'd nail the second one definitely..

It would appear the second car wants to go faster and would go faster if the first one wasn't there.

So the first car might feel a little pressure to up the speed a bit to keep the second car from overtaking/getting too close.

That's my opinion.

Also, anything over 110 in a 100 is asking for trouble, no excuses. Why do people knowingly break the limit by 20/30 km/hr+?

When you hit 100 do you not think, "i'm not allowed to go much faster, 110 is maximum" and anything over that and it's a fine, penalty points, hassle, trouble?

I understand the 'if in doubt, pass them out' attitude as 9 times out of 10 you regret not overtaking a car if you had a chance earlier...

But surely the guilty conscience kicks in after you pass the 100 mark? I'm interested in the mentality.. i've never been caught speeding and never would i smash limits for no reason, and seeing those little red and white circles gives me that 'back to school / strict teacher type feeling'.

Seth Brundle

Theboinkmaster wrote:

Due process wtf ?! We're talking €80 fine and 2 penalty points not 5 years being buggered in mount joy

And your sh!ite about by the book? That's a moronic thing to say given the present day legal system and the fact that he ADMITTED to speeding - criminals walk away free from court every day even though it's obvious they're guilty but get away on a legal technicality, OJ anyone?!

He admitted he was speeding so he should just shut the fúck up and get on with it not come onto a motoring forum looking for loopholes to get off

If everyone is nice to each other then the world will be a much nicer place. If people continue posting like that then I'll get very very cross!

DonJose

Javon Billions Hairbrush wrote:

Sorry for going OT but to reply to an OT above:- Here we go again. Let him know so the site can post a warning to let speeders know where and when to slow down. They can then speed to their little heart's content on the rest of the journey. Very responsible. I thought IST said the purpose was to get speedtraps where they were needed. Obviously legit on that road that night.

IST doesn't give a shíte about road saftey, all they care about is marking as many speed cameras onto the googlemap as possible so the boyracers think they are getting value for money. Lets face it, all this is, is a money making scheme, I make a living from running websites, you can get a dedicated server with 2000GBs of bandwidth for €100/month. You easily make this from your google adwords. Selling the locations of speed cameras is just a way of lining your pockets at the expense of people lives.

DonJose

mick.fr wrote:

I am not going to challenge it, it is not worth it, because it just costed me 80 euro.

Did it really costed that much :rolleyes:

mick.fr wrote:

Anyway, this is not the first time I have been speeding and this will not be the last time. This is actually very often the only way for me to avoid the dangerous way people are driving here very often.

Don't forget to inform your insurance company!!! Thats the good thing about the points system, after 12 points it will be the last time until you get your license back.

Seth Brundle

DonJose wrote:

Selling the locations of speed cameras is just a way of lining your pockets at the expense of people lives.

Are there stats showing the numbers killed from downloading this kind of information or are you just making it up? :rolleyes:

DonJose

kbannon wrote:

Are there stats showing the numbers killed from downloading this kind of information or are you just making it up? :rolleyes:

I don't have any stats. Maybe IST should compare his list of customers against the names of road accident victims and let us know what he finds.

For those who say speed doesn't kill check out the link below, this is what happens when young and inexperienced people speed.

http://rte.ie/news/2007/0928/rta.html

Stark

DonJose wrote:

For those who say speed doesn't kill check out the link below, this is what happens when young and inexperienced people speed.

http://rte.ie/news/2007/0928/rta.html

Fecking hell, they must have found out where those M50 speed cameras were then.

What about the 60 year old who went off the road? I take it the "young and inexperienced" rhetoric doesn't apply to him.

DonJose

Stark wrote:

Fecking hell, they must have found out where those M50 speed cameras were then.

Whats your point?

Stark

You think IST is responsible for their deaths? Because by giving that as your reply to kbannon's question, that's what you're implying.

Eoin

DonJose wrote:

I don't have any stats. Maybe IST should compare his list of customers against the names of road accident victims and let us know what he finds.

For those who say speed doesn't kill check out the link below, this is what happens when young and inexperienced people speed.

http://rte.ie/news/2007/0928/rta.html

OK, ignoring the other two older people in that link who were also killed in crashes (and that speeding wasn't mentioned specifically, though I don't doubt it was probably the case):

If there had been a speed trap there that they didn't know about, they would have not slowed down, and would have been killed.

Steve

DonJose:
With the greatest of respect, how do you know what speed they were doing, it's not mentioned in the article.
It could well have been mechanical failure or alcohol related. It could even have been using a mobile phone.

Please don't pass judgement on these people unless you have all the facts.

The fact that the not-too-substantial fence seems to have stopped the car and that the front crumple zone is still intact suggests it was not a high speed incident - I'm not an expert though, this is what the Garda accident investigators are for.

I would hazard a guess that the attributable cause of these tragic deaths will be "not wearing seatbelts".

Eoin

DonJose wrote:

Did it really costed that much :rolleyes:

Nice use of the rolly-eye chap there. I don't think the OP is a native English speaker, so there's even less need for that type of comment.

Golferx

No wonder we have such high mortality rates on our roads when those advocating safer roads show a complete and utter lack of understanding of the dynamics of speed.

FFS, if one was to take a cold hard look at EVERY road crash, one could say the re was excessive speed. Slow down one or all the participants in EVERY crash and you would reduce the road fatalities to ZERO.

So, those of you bleating on about "speeding", please do some research into what constitutes dangerous driving and focus your efforts on reducing that.

Penalty Points are, for most people, a curse, a huge inconvenience only likely to increase one's insurance premium. They do very very little to improve road safety and driver behaviour. We need proper education of all drivers, proper engineering of our roads and a decent educated enforcement of our traffic laws.

A breach of the speed limit should not trigger an automatic penalty. It should simply provide a tool for our Gardai to penalise an errand driver, where the speed was seen to constitute dangerous or careless driving. I would define such driving as any action which causes another road user to take evasive action. For too many people the answer is a simplistic one, an ineffective one.

Golferx

DonJose wrote:

.........
For those who say speed doesn't kill check out the link below, this is what happens when young and inexperienced people speed.

http://rte.ie/news/2007/0928/rta.html

OK. Two things you MUST produce to back up your statement

1. What speed was this car doing at the time it went out of control ?

and

2. What was the maximum speed the car could have negotiated that stretch of road safely at? (That is not the speed limit of the road)

If you cannot answer both questions then you have no right to come out with such a blanket statement.

_Kaiser_

Most of my daily driving is on N/M-roads and I drive at the limit (or maybe a few km over - but literally only a few) when appropriate/safe to do so and I believe in making good progress on the road. This means I will overtake slower vehicles (especially trucks/vans/buses) at the earliest opportunity - although many people DO move in when they can and always get a wave/flash of the hazards for their consideration.

When overtaking I do tend to put the boot down as I feel you should spend as little time as possible on the wrong side of the road (and a 1.9 TDI definitely helps in this regard), but I then slow back to the appropriate limit once I've completed the manoeuver.

So I suppose you could say I do speed, but I think most Gardai are copped on enough to recognize the difference between this and someone doing 140 in an 80-100 zone.

Seth Brundle

DonJose wrote:

I don't have any stats. Maybe IST should compare his list of customers against the names of road accident victims and let us know what he finds.

So you are making it all up then. This doesn't really help that argument!

DonJose wrote:

For those who say speed doesn't kill check out the link below, this is what happens when young and inexperienced people speed.

http://rte.ie/news/2007/0928/rta.html

You presumably know sweet FA about this particular incident.
All I can tell from that (and the RTE news @ 1) is that it occured at 2am on what appeared to be a relatively straight stretch of road.
It would have been dark - was the driver experienced at driving in the dark?
Was alcohol or drugs involved?
The car was driven by a 17 year old. Was the driver on a provisional licence? Had they received any professional training?
The car (according to the news) was a 'high powered' civic. Assuming it was high powered, was the driver too inexperienced to use this kind of car?
Was there a fault with the car?
Was there a fault with the road? (it was described on the news by the local priest as being 'substandard').

There were long tyre marks on the road indicating that the driver was trying to stop. The speed of the car is as yet unknown. I suspect that the driver was going too fast but Im making an assumption. However, I don't have a clue about any of the other factors, any one of which may have been the primary cause.
By applying a blanket assumption that speed was the only factor over the incident is daft. You could have said that inappropriate speed kills and it wouldn't have come across as naive but like most other people debating the 'anti-speed' side, you never use this term!

MrPudding

DonJose wrote:

I don't have any stats. Maybe IST should compare his list of customers against the names of road accident victims and let us know what he finds.

How many fixed cameras are there where this accident below happened? How many mobile camera checks are there in this area at the time the accident happened? If the answer to these questions is 0 them IST has fcuk all to do with the accident.


[quote=DonJose
For those who say speed doesn't kill check out the link below, this is what happens when young and inexperienced people speed.

http://rte.ie/news/2007/0928/rta.html [/quote]

This proves that the guy had an accident. End of story. There are plenty of rural roads that cannot be safely negotiated at the legal speed limit assigned for them. There is absolutely no need to be speeding to find yourself wrapped around a tree.

On the subject of IST. First of all, I support the website and I like what he is trying to do. In a proper country this is a service that would actually save lives. If cameras were actually placed for safety then having there locations published would reduce incidents in the areas where the cameras were placed.

I think some posters are possibly exaggerating the effect of this site as well. How many people check it and how often do they check it? Seriously, think about it. If you have mobile operators out and about moving all the time the website is useless to someone already on the road. How do they know a mobile camera unit has just set up 2 miles down the road?

Unless, perhaps they download all the possible mobile unit locations and add them to their GPS. Then when they are approaching a potential mobile site they slow down. Well they have to don’t they, they don’t know if there is a check there or not….. Hmmmm, so, if you post potential location of mobile sites on the web the people that download the information, let’s face it the most likely people to speed, will slow down for mobile sites whether they are manned or not. Interesting. Perhaps Irish Speed Traps is a site secretly set up by the gardai as a force multiplier?

There are two very different opinions here. You have my opinion, the most reasonable IMO , speeding is not the greatest evil on our roads. Fines and points should not be handed out for every infraction. I do not believe people should be fined simply for speeding. I do not advocate a free for all I have never said that limit should simply be increased, in fact I have argued that many places should have lower speed limits. I simply believe that fines and points should be used to increase safety and reduce casualties. Fining people going over the limit on safe roads does not help here. Our young drivers are not being killed a 1500hrs on the N11. They do not care if you have speed traps on a road they have possibly never even heard of. I am also of the opinion that publicising the location of cameras is A Good Thing ™. It makes them more effective more safety, though less effective for generating revenue.

The other side believes that speeding is the greatest evil since the British Empire. It kills everyone involved and makes baby Jesus cry. Every single infraction should be punished and the term inappropriate speed is a cop out.

I don’t think the two sides will ever meet, but then I suppose that is what makes debating fun.

MrP

Seth Brundle

I don't think it was raised yet either: regarding the incident in Roscommon where the two lost their lives; were the two back seat passengers who died wearing their seat belts?

godtabh

MrPudding wrote:

I am not denying that, never have. My point is that when drivers know there is a camera they slow down. How effective would average speed check cameras be if they were hidden?

MrP

I never suggested they should be hidden i was just saying the are better dan the current system

MrPudding

kearnsr wrote:

I never suggested they should be hidden i was just saying the are better dan the current system

Other posters in this and similar threads have said that cameras locations should not be made easily available. My question as to the effectiveness of hidden average speed check cameras was directed at them.

They are better at controlling speed over a longer distance. For example, an area where there is danger over a long distance rather than just a corner, road works for example. Interestingly, the system at Newry is the only one I have come across in the UK that is not covering roadworks. But then it is just a pilot scheme.

This type of camera would fit nicely into my preferred model of camera usage, where they are used for the purpose of reducing road casualties. I would not want them everywhere but they would make it easier to slow drivers down in a "complex" of dangerous corners where inappropriate speed has been identified as a cause to contributing factor in a number of incidents. Of course this does nothing where a corner cannot be safely negotiated at the legal speed for the road it is on. That would be inappropriate speed rather than speeding. Unfortunately I don't think you can get inappropriate speed cameras.....

MrP

I.S.T.

DonJose wrote:

I make a living from running websites, you can get a dedicated server with 2000GBs of bandwidth for €100/month. You easily make this from your google adwords. Selling the locations of speed cameras is just a way of lining your pockets at the expense of people lives.

Care to provide a link? The cheapest quote I have for dedicated hosting is €250 a month. Our adwords for the last 7 days have brought in the sum of US$4.20. How is that going to pay the bills?????

Marcus.Aurelius

kearnsr wrote:

I never suggested they should be hidden i was just saying the are better dan the current system

Where Gardaí are banned from doing speed checks so that the cameras can boost the detection figures through the roof. All the speed cameras rolled out thus far are in fish-in-a-barrell zones, low risk, high volume, silly low speed limits. If they gave two sh*ts about preventing accidents and deaths, the cameras would be in high risk zones, with intelligent limits.

A speed camera beside a school with a special limit, say 40 kph for 500 m, would change behaviour, rather than rake in fines and pump up figures for Bertie the Sh*twit Ahern

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

MrPudding wrote:

Other posters in this and similar threads have said that cameras locations should not be made easily available. My question as to the effectiveness of hidden average speed check cameras was directed at them.

MrP

Hi MrP. I am, as you are well aware, one who is against advertising the location of speed cameras as I think the speeder will just slow for a short distance and not change his habits or leave the road any safer for others. However I am an advocate of average speed detection (we actually agree on this ) and I have never said their locations should be secret or hidden as by their very nature such speed checks control the speed of traffic over a considerable distance and instill an ethos of driving within the set limits.

I.S.T.

Javon Billions Hairbrush wrote:

Hi MrP. I am, as you are well aware, one who is against advertising the location of speed cameras as I think the speeder will just slow for a short distance and not change his habits or leave the road any safer for others. However I am an advocate of average speed detection (we actually agree on this ) and I have never said their locations should be secret or hidden as by their very nature such speed checks control the speed of traffic over a considerable distance and instill an ethos of driving within the set limits.

Javon Billions Hairbrush, what is your view on the UK police publicising the locations of their speed cameras?

Keith C

IrishSpeedTraps wrote:

Srameen, what is your view on the UK police publicising the locations of their speed cameras?

Be interested to hear an answer on this

MrPudding

IrishSpeedTraps wrote:

Srameen, what is your view on the UK police publicising the locations of their speed cameras?

And the French who bend over backwards to publish you advertise the location of speed cameras.

MrP