WANTED! People for speed camera debate on Questions and Answers

cyclopath2001

D_murph wrote: »

still do you think that any of those crashes would have happened if the camera van wasnt there?:

What we saw was how the drivers were unable to control their cars safely when confronted with a sudden change in road conditions. In this case it was the possibility of fine and penalty points, but the outcome would have been the same if something else unexpected had occurred, for example an object blowing onto the road or an item falling from a truck.

The dilemma is whether it is better to conceal the cameras and avoid distraction or to make them quite visible and remind people that they can be caught when breaking the law.

PauloToole

Here's the thing

Speed traps just don't work.

All they do is generate money for the Government.

How many times must I listen to the Garda commissioner on nEwstalk Radio saying that cops don't hide behind bushes.

Look at what the Spanish do as a good example.

They dont have speed cameras as such.

You go on to a motorway, a camera takes a pic of you registration.

They have calculated the legnth of the road so if you arrive at any particular point or exit sooner than you should, BOOM you get a speeding ticket.

MUCH BETTER SYSTEM

Cionád

PauloToole wrote: »

Look at what the Spanish do as a good example.

They dont have speed cameras as such.

You go on to a motorway, a camera takes a pic of you registration.

They have calculated the legnth of the road so if you arrive at any particular point or exit sooner than you should, BOOM you get a speeding ticket.

MUCH BETTER SYSTEM

It's the same thing though. Generating money from a road thats bound to have people driving about the limit - as long as it's not the M50 )

Also this wouldn't work on the dangerous backroads that rarely have speed traps because of turns etc you'd never break the average speed limit.

PauloToole

It's a tough one

I'm on the N7 most days and there are some real nut jobs on that road.

I'll be honest I dont have any faith in the Gov to sort out issues like this.

Even with a 34 billion Euro splurge on transport.

PauloToole

PauloToole wrote: »

Here's the thing

Speed traps just don't work.

All they do is generate money for the Government.

How many times must I listen to the Garda commissioner on nEwstalk Radio saying that cops don't hide behind bushes.

Look at what the Spanish do as a good example.

They dont have speed cameras as such.

You go on to a motorway, a camera takes a pic of you registration.

They have calculated the legnth of the road so if you arrive at any particular point or exit sooner than you should, BOOM you get a speeding ticket.

MUCH BETTER SYSTEM

A similar system is I believe used in france, but there you collect a ticket when you enter a toll road and pay on exit. All tickets are timestamped and if you arrive too early you get a speeding ticket as well.

Cionád

Deleted User wrote: »

A similar system is I believe used in france, but there you collect a ticket when you enter a toll road and pay on exit. All tickets are timestamped and if you arrive too early you get a speeding ticket as well.

When we holidayed in France my dad thought this was the case so wee used to always make a rest stop in between each toll. There would usually be ~3 hours between them. If only we had one stretch of 3 hr motorway... Donegal to Cork lol

Our man in Havana

Deleted User wrote: »

A similar system is I believe used in france, but there you collect a ticket when you enter a toll road and pay on exit. All tickets are timestamped and if you arrive too early you get a speeding ticket as well.

Only if the toll station is manned by Police.

Seth Brundle

Deleted User wrote: »

A similar system is I believe used in france, but there you collect a ticket when you enter a toll road and pay on exit. All tickets are timestamped and if you arrive too early you get a speeding ticket as well.

This is not the case - as Bond said, its only if the police are actively standing by the toll booth.
The last few time I drive in France I managed to average well over the speed limit on the autoroutes.
No bother!
Thankfully!

astraboy

KBannon, how naughty of you! Don't you know breaking the speed limit on a safe motorway is determental to other road users.:D Actually, I heard that the cops in France are quite strict on speed limits, and they will even bring you to an ATM to make you pay an on the spot fine if you are a foreigner!

@Javaboy, my apologies for my scarcasim, I forgot you are one of the more level headed anti speeding posters on here. The anti speeding Waffen SS had me paranoid! I can see your points are well though out we are in agreement in some points.

I still believe that the key to road safety is having police out actually driving the roads. A "broken windows approach" can be taken to road safety, where drivers are pulled over and warned for minor offenses, making them more careful in the future, having a knock on effect on everyones driving. Things like right lane hogging and dangerous overtaking would be seriously reduced with the simple act of having more cop cars visible on the roads. Road safety should not be all stick and no carrot IMO.

Seth Brundle

astraboy wrote: »

KBannon, how naughty of you! Don't you know breaking the speed limit on a safe motorway is determental to other road users.:D Actually, I heard that the cops in France are quite strict on speed limits, and they will even bring you to an ATM to make you pay an on the spot fine if you are a foreigner!

I heard that alright! Stiff fines and/or jail. Still, all of those caught over the last few years that I can think of had GB plates on! I passed a squad car whilst doing about 100mph (decellarated from about 125) and brought her back up shortly afterwards. I like to think it was because the French like the Paddies!

astraboy

kbannon wrote: »

I heard that alright! Stiff fines and/or jail. Still, all of those caught over the last few years that I can think of had GB plates on! I passed a squad car whilst doing about 100mph (decellarated from about 125) and brought her back up shortly afterwards. I like to think it was because the French like the Paddies!

Might not be far wrong, the GF stayed in France all last summer, and her experience was that the cops HATED you if they though you were British, but as soon as they found out you were Irish, they had no problem! It would'nt be too crazy to assume the same does'nt happen on the roads.

Cionád

astraboy wrote: »

Might not be far wrong, the GF stayed in France all last summer, and her experience was that the cops HATED you if they though you were British, but as soon as they found out you were Irish, they had no problem! It would'nt be too crazy to assume the same does'nt happen on the roads.

I'll be slapping a big IRL sticker on the boot when I head over so :cool:

Still, wont be speeding, those fines are extortionate.

Bond-007

Bond-007 wrote: »

Only if the toll station is manned by Police.

Thanks, I thought it was automatic! glad it's not!!

MrPudding

astraboy wrote: »

Might not be far wrong, the GF stayed in France all last summer, and her experience was that the cops HATED you if they though you were British, but as soon as they found out you were Irish, they had no problem! It would'nt be too crazy to assume the same does'nt happen on the roads.

Very true. My gf is French and we hang about with quite a few of her friends when over. I am slightly concerned that my bike and our cars now have UK plates.....

cyclopath2001 wrote: »

What we saw was how the drivers were unable to control their cars safely when confronted with a sudden change in road conditions. In this case it was the possibility of fine and penalty points, but the outcome would have been the same if something else unexpected had occurred, for example an object blowing onto the road or an item falling from a truck.

The dilemma is whether it is better to conceal the cameras and avoid distraction or to make them quite visible and remind people that they can be caught when breaking the law.

Or perhaps teach them how to drive properly? No?

javaboy wrote: »

If all the speed/safety cameras have advance warning signs then nobody will speed around the cameras but they will continue to speed in other areas because they know they will not be caught.

So what? Just make sure the highly visible cameras are in the dangerous places. As you know, speeding, in and of itself is not dangerous.

javaboy wrote: »

The outcome is that stretches of road observed by cameras will not have speeders. So each camera will improve safety on one stretch of road only.

This is one of my major issues with the ever popular speed checks on the N11, for example. How does that improve road safety in Donegal?

javaboy wrote: »

If there is a mix of advertised and hidden speed cameras, then each camera will have an indirect knock on effect on more than one road because you won't know where they are. For the roads that really need an immediate reduction in speeding, sure give advance warnings because it's the fastest way to reduce speeding in the short term.


*when I say speed/speeding I mean exeeding the speed limit

I would go slightly differently, as I think I may have mentioned before....:D. I would use highly advertised and visible cameras to shape driver behaviour in areas where to is a history of incidents. As you say, and as I have said before, this will have an instant effect on road safety. Of course it will also have an instant effect on government revenue generation, so we are unlikely to see it.

I would probably not go for hidden cameras, to be honest. Those that really want to speed will find out the locations. Then there is really no point in hiding them as they act like normal advertised cameras, for those in the know. You simply end up catching the unlucky few who don’t know the locations and are breaking the limit in what is actually a fairly safe area.

I would prefer that there were mobile speed checks as well as more patrols trying to nail dangerous driver.

I know us anti speed camera folk keep harping on about inappropriate speed and that a lot of you pro speeding folk think it is a cop out, but it really isn’t. I don’t think that anyone can honestly say that someone doing 70kph on the N11 mid afternoon is more dangerous that someone doing 50 on the N7, overtaking on solid white lines and blind corners or our country friend tearing round country roads, within the speed limit, but a limit that is probably 20 or 30 kph above what it should be. Which one does the speed camera get?

MrP

keefg

astraboy wrote: »

Might not be far wrong, the GF stayed in France all last summer, and her experience was that the cops HATED you if they though you were British, but as soon as they found out you were Irish, they had no problem!

100% true....I shall tell you a driving story (it's a bit long but illustrates the English-Irish-French relationship perfectly.

Many years ago I used to drive in Europe for a living and while on my way back from Frankfurt one night I got a call from one of our Paris drivers (Richard) who had broken down just outside Paris (while he was heading back to Calais for the ferry to Dover).

Just to clarify, Richard is English, & I am Irish…..Richard is also a monster of a guy, 6ft tall, full of muscle, skinhead & covered in bulldog & Union Jack tattoos which he used to display with pride……this will become relevant in a minute .

So, I drove down to Paris and we transferred all the bags of post he had onto my truck, we left his van in a lay-by for the recovery guys to collect in the morning.

So we were about 40 mins away from Calais (at about 4am) and we stop in a garage for coffee & a toilet break. As I was knackered I asked him to take over the driving to Calais so I could get my head down, which he does.

So, I lie down across the passenger seat and throw my jacket over my head. We were only on the road for 10 mins when Richard tells me to sit up as the cops were pulling him over.

One of the cops comes to the driver’s door and starts talking to Richard in French (obviously). Now, if I were in this position I would politely explain in my very basic French that I could not speak much French and ask the officer if he could speak English.

Not Richard. He jumps out of the cab and says to the cop” Look ‘ere mate, I aint French….I only speak English…..Understand?”

The cop takes the tacho from the truck and tells Richard to take a seat in the patrol car.

A few mins later Richard comes back to the truck and tells me that the cops want to speak to me because I forgot to take out my tacho (which Richard was driving on) and that the ticket was for me.

Ahh Sh1te, I am thinking (I was very tired at the time so it slipped my mind) and I head to the patrol car to face the music.

I give one of the cops my driving licence and he starts to write me up a ticket. The other cop asks to see my passport and when he opens it he says….”Irelande?.....You Irish?”

“Ahh, wee monsieur” I reply……..”Ahh OK,” says the cop and tells his colleague to stop writing the ticket and then tells me to fetch Richard back to the patrol car.

Here’s the funny bit…:D…after a couple of mins Richard jumps out of the patrol car and screams at me “These f**king **nts want 750 pound (Sterling) off me for driving on your tacho”

Richard didn’t have the money (the cops would not accept my credit card as payment) and he was escorted to Dunkirk police station and I was sent on my merry way to Calais…..with a VERY big grin on my face.

On my next shift in work I found out that Richard was held by the cops in France for all of the following day and our boss had to drive to Dunkirk from London to pay the fine.

So, yes…..the French do like the Irish (compared to the English anyway) :D

Viva La France!

javaboy

astraboy wrote: »

@Javaboy, my apologies for my scarcasim, I forgot you are one of the more level headed anti speeding posters on here. The anti speeding Waffen SS had me paranoid! I can see your points are well though out we are in agreement in some points.

I still believe that the key to road safety is having police out actually driving the roads. A "broken windows approach" can be taken to road safety, where drivers are pulled over and warned for minor offenses, making them more careful in the future, having a knock on effect on everyones driving. Things like right lane hogging and dangerous overtaking would be seriously reduced with the simple act of having more cop cars visible on the roads. Road safety should not be all stick and no carrot IMO.

No probs astraboy I was a bit quick to jump on the defensive.

I agree the key is having police out actually enforcing the laws. You shouldn't be able to do a journey in Dublin of more than 30 mins without seeing a Garda car.

ART6

Many of those who responded here seem to be of the opinion that speed cameras are actually a revenue raising venture. So what's surprising about that? For years the Irish government has slavishly followed the initiatives of the UK government, and they have quickly latched on to the fact that anything people like doing or must do is a good source of income. This is revealed not just in the speed camera issue, but in that every perceived problem can be resolved by applying a tax/duty/fine. Example: Don't require progressively lower emission levels, tax the high ones. Don't reduce congestion in cities by improving public transport and park and ride services, apply a congestion charge. Don't limit the avilability of alcohol to under age drinkers, increase the tax on booze instead. The point is, I suppose, that the average politician nowadays is of limited intelligence, and all of that is devoted to raising money that can then be thrown into idiotic schemes that never could have any benifit to the people. The only democratic approach (in so far as Ireland remains a democracy) is to write to your TD explaining your opposition to speed cameras or whatever, and point out that if his party supports it, it will not get your vote at the next general election. If the 2.5 million drivers in Ireland did that, we could expect a quick three point turn. It's your choice.:rolleyes:

Steve

Well said ART6.:)

Sandwich

ART6 wrote: »

write to your TD explaining your opposition to speed cameras or whatever, and point out that if his party supports it, it will not get your vote at the next general election. If the 2.5 million drivers in Ireland did that, we could expect a quick three point turn. It's your choice.:rolleyes:

Its a good thing then that a majority of the 2.5 million have more concern for road safety than to do something that irresponsible.:)

Tomas_V

ART6 wrote: »

The point is, I suppose, that the average politician nowadays is of limited intelligence...:rolleyes:

What a sweeping statement! Actually the politicians are quite clever. It's the people who vote for them that are not.

I am sure once you inform your local candidates of your considered opinion of their IQ, they'll invite you to join their party and lead them to victory.

Speed cameras will catch and discipline drivers who don't respect laws and will release Garda resources to deal with other kinds of dangerous driving. Any party that supports such initiatives will get my respect.

Steve

Tomas_V wrote: »

Speed cameras will catch and discipline drivers who don't respect laws and will release Garda resources to deal with other kinds of dangerous driving. Any party that supports such initiatives will get my respect.

Can you (or anyone else) give me an example of any country on the planet where speed tax cameras work - i.e. stop speeding.

If they worked then they would not generate revenue. They would cost the taxpayer money and keep the roads safe - happy days for all - NOT.

I've had this debate and still cannot understand why the government are predicting at least 25m per year revenue when all speeding will have stopped:eek:

Tomas_V

stevec wrote: »

Can you (or anyone else) give me an example of any country on the planet where .... cameras work

The UK?

stevec wrote: »

I've had this debate and still cannot understand why the government are predicting at least 25m per year revenue when all speeding will have stopped:eek:

An average fatal accident has an economic cost of about 1m euro. Just hosing the blood and guts off the road costs a few thousand & it's usually deemed insensitive to send the bill to the relatives.

But,we all know that illegal speeding will never to eradicated. Hopefully it can be reduced significantly by equipping the Gardai with the right tools for the job.

E92

Tomas_V wrote: »

The UK?

As yes our good friends in the UK, the bastion of success for speed cameras.

So successful, that the Tory party(fortunately) wants to reduce the number of them if(when with a bit of luck) they get put into power. They also want to up the Motorway speed limit to 80 mph(well nobody does 70 there anyway) too. They actually reckon that it would shock horror *save* lives because people go at that anyway(and often more).

And the number of fatalities in the UK has not changed since the introduction of speed cameras. The Brits hate them and want to get rid of them. The only thing that has changed since the widespread introduction of speed cameras in the UK is how much more money the Government makes.

And in Germany where half of the Autobahn network has no speed limits, the fatalities are exactly the same in speed limit free Autobahns as the ones with a speed limit.

Now considering that the speed limit on a German Autobahn is 120 or 130, and the average speed on limit free sections is 150, that's a rather inconvenient truth to the speed camera lobby. Ignorance is bliss. It's rather handy though, conveniently ignoring statistics. Fianna Fáil are great at doing it too, and look where it got them. I wish I could get the hang of this thing too, but I'm afraid I don't live in fantasy land.

Yet in Japan, where you can only do 100 on a Motorway, they have a fatality rate more than double the Germans. Can someone explain how this can be? I thought the faster you go the more likely I'll be killed on our roads:rolleyes:.

Automan

Tomas_V wrote: »

The UK?

Well then explain to me why there taking them off the motorway in the UK then?
I was over there about a month ago and drove about 300 miles and every place that had the markings for the speed cameras on the motorway had no speed camera (they were removed).
So again Ireland is going backwards.
Also when the M50 is complete it will have a reduced speed of 100kmh, hmm wonder where half the 600 revenue cameras will be.

astraboy

Tomas_V wrote: »

The UK?

An average fatal accident has an economic cost of about 1m euro. Just hosing the blood and guts off the road costs a few thousand & it's usually deemed insensitive to send the bill to the relatives.

But,we all know that illegal speeding will never to eradicated. Hopefully it can be reduced significantly by equipping the Gardai with the right tools for the job.

Bollix. The UK has higher accident rates then BEFORE the introduction of scameras in many parts of the UK. Why? Well basically, the cops/government got lazy, though the scameras would stop all the road carnage, and stopped patrolling the roads properly where they can stop real dangerous drivers. The same will happen here. If you think scameras will save lives you are worng, and if you think they will free up police resources and you will see more patrol cars on the road, you are seriously mistaken.

We are not anti road safety, but this myopic view that shooting fish in a barrel will save lives is plain ridiculous. I'd like to see more cop cars on the roads, driving up and down patrolling, not with the cops behind a bush on a straight stretch of road with a low speed limit

But shar, we all know its those people with the nerve to exceed the speed limit when its safe to do so, those doing 110Kph on a straight national secondary route, that are the real killers out there.:rolleyes:

FFS, wake up to the reality people. Tax cameras are just there to raise revenue and to make it LOOK like the government gives a **** about road safety. Plonkers. It seems banning things and fining people is the only way they know how to govern...

@E92, well said man! Agree 100% as usual.

Steve

Tomas_V wrote: »

The UK?

so why are they now removing them?

Tomas_V wrote: »

An average fatal accident has an economic cost of about 1m euro. Just hosing the blood and guts off the road costs a few thousand & it's usually deemed insensitive to send the bill to the relatives.

.....link?

Tomas_V wrote: »

But,we all know that illegal speeding will never to eradicated. Hopefully it can be reduced significantly by equipping the Gardai with the right tools for the job.

What's this got to do with a private company (not the gardai) operating speed tax cameras?

ART6

Tomas_V wrote: »

What a sweeping statement! Actually the politicians are quite clever. It's the people who vote for them that are not.

I am sure once you inform your local candidates of your considered opinion of their IQ, they'll invite you to join their party and lead them to victory.

Speed cameras will catch and discipline drivers who don't respect laws and will release Garda resources to deal with other kinds of dangerous driving. Any party that supports such initiatives will get my respect.

Interesting that you regard my throw away comment about the intelligence of politicians as a sweeping statement, and you then go on to state that it is the electorate that is unintelligent. At least my sweeping referred to a relatively small group. Yours refers to several millions :rolleyes:

On that subject I comment simply by observation and not as a result of detailed research. I reserve the right to question the brains of anyone who insists he has the solution to a problem when a substantial amount of evidence shows him to be wrong. The speed camera issue is a case to point. I don't have a problem with average speed systems based on two cameras some distance apart and placed in areas where speeding is an issue. What I do question is the UK practise of blanketing the country with single cameras on major roads in the conviction that it will resolve the problem when common sense, apart from statistical evidence, says it will not. In that situation the minister responsible is surely either unintelligent or more interested in raising revenue?

Even if I had any interest in politics (I did years ago, but soon became disillusioned by the falsity of it all) then I would have to join a local party group and serve it faithfully for a few years while adhering to the party line like glue. Eventually I might be put forward as a candidate for a local government election, and serve there while again keeping strictly to the party line. Finally, with party support, election as a TD and eventually, if I always did as I'm told, I might be given a ministerial post, at which time I can really start to f*** things up. Oh, and it would help if by background I was a lawyer or teacher or civil servant -- anything as long as I had never worked in the real world.:)
Oh, I accept that there are among us a few politicians who have sufficient integrity to not always adhere to the party line, and who can put forward a well reasoned argument on the solution to a problem, but how many of them end up in government?

Finally, the point I was attempting to make although you seem to miss it, is that if people are sufficiently opposed to a government initiative then the democratic action is to take it up with the local TD. You also have that facility in supporting speed cameras. Perhaps if enough people made their feelings known one way or the other, our politicians might be better informed and less prone to irritating the hell out of people.

Tomas_V

stevec wrote: »

so why are they now removing them?

Link?

stevec wrote: »

Link?

You'll find many references on the net as to the cost of road accidents, obviously there is no set figure. The point is that there is a substantial economic cost and will more than offset the operational costs of safety measures. The value of fines is minuscule compared to the economic benefits of averting accidents.

stevec wrote: »

What's this got to do with a private company (not the gardai) operating speed tax cameras?

It's called out-sourcing. As far as I know these cameras can only detect speeding offenses, they can't read your tax disc. The fines themselves only have to be paid by law-breakers. So, if you don't want to pay, don't break the law.

But, if a better technology were to be proposed, perhaps GPS monitoring, I'd welcome it.

It's clear that we can't trust motorists to self-regulate.

Tomas_V

Tomas_V wrote: »

It's clear that we can't trust motorists to self-regulate.

Not really, the vast majority of motorists DO observe the rules of the road, drive at a resonable (usually at the limit or slightly over)speed along the road depending on the conditions.

Most motorists drive below the limit when conditions deteriate or when it simply isn't save to drive at the prescribed limit.

ART6

Deleted User wrote: »

Not really, the vast majority of motorists DO observe the rules of the road, drive at a resonable (usually at the limit or slightly over)speed along the road depending on the conditions.

Most motorists drive below the limit when conditions deteriate or when it simply isn't save to drive at the prescribed limit.

Completely agree, which was the thinking behind my point about the behaviour of politicians, who always seem to take the simplistic option that penalises the many for the sins of the few, and always seems to involve either taxes or fines. I have difficulty believing that such an approach has anything to do with safety rather than revenue raising. If the reasoning was the former then there would be a lot more traffic cops on the roads instead of a lot of cops sitting in a barracks watching us all on cameras and downloading shots from Gatsos.