GARDA speed "traps" on motorway slip roads

Sandwich

buttsoirl wrote: »

you cant even see them... they just come up behind you .. and thats you buggered... (literally)

Well. Not literally. Literally.

Mylow

Has someone been plagerising a US website?

An Garda Síochána will utilize these zones in order to direct speed enforcement activity in a proportionate and targeted manner

Sandwich

tw0nk wrote: »

but you don't see the death totals ... decreasing do you?

If you look at the figures. You do.

Mylow

Sizzler wrote: »

On another note, interestingly enough in the UK the regulations state that fixed GATSO's must be hi-viz, but coppers with random speed checks can pretty much do what they want.

I think anyone in UK working on road must wear hi-viz. Any of the mobile units I have seen were wearing Hi-Viz jackets. The PSNI normally have a mobile unit around Banbridge on the A1, they always have hi-viz jackets on.

Mylow

I have seen a few responses about people jamming on when they see Gatso vans. I drive the M1 regularly and you regularly have people who jam on even though they are doing less than the limit. It seems to be a reaction 'in case' they are over the limit.

I have TomTom unit, set-up to warn if I exceed the 'posted' speed limit by 5% for a pre-defined duration. The only down side is that it doesn't always match correct road limits. Info for North of Border is normally pretty good, South of the border can be very hit and miss. I was told that the mapping companies made a request for speed designations on roads here and were refused.

It would be simple to add accident blackspots, schools etc as an audible warning on sat-nav system via the POI system. This could then be seen as education and not purely enforcement.

We have always been told education pays.

buttsoirl

Twonk got my point exactly....

if are you speeding and get caught by the Gardai then its a fair cop... you broke the law.. even if it was a 70 mile stretch of motorway with no turns, it was a sunny day, no rain for 3 years and you hadnt been drinking

I think we can all agree that far too many people are being killed on Irish roads and speed in some cases is a factor...

but my point is the based around what other police forces around the world have come to realise " visible deterrents save lives", get out there on the road, paint the speed cameras bright yellow, tell people they are entering an area of speed cameras. or that there maybe speed checks ahead..

Instead we have the Irish gardai who prowl the countryside looking for a bush tall enough to hide the car and himself behind.. so that all you see is a set of luminous legs and a hat :mad:

And then we have the garda car hidden on the downslope of a motorway sliproad which has a single white line and from what I remember of my rules of the road you CANNOT stop on a motorway slip road. This new style of policing is more a product of a generating revenue than for being a deterrent to speeders, if it was the latter, he would be on the elevated "garda vehicles only" platform acting as a VISIBLE deterrent..

why is it that the gardai can break or bend laws when it suits them????

TheNog

buttsoirl wrote: »

but my point is the based around what other police forces around the world have come to realise " visible deterrents save lives", get out there on the road, paint the speed cameras bright yellow, tell people they are entering an area of speed cameras. or that there maybe speed checks ahead..

Instead we have the Irish gardai who prowl the countryside looking for a bush tall enough to hide the car and himself behind.. so that all you see is a set of luminous legs and a hat :mad:

There has been significant increase in visibility over the last few years and I think we could agree that more is needed but increased visibility takes resources which cannot be in place overnight. Also the other work Gardai do has not reduced nor vanished so there has to be a balance between both road traffic and the other workload.

I believe in two methods of speed detections - overt and co-overt. Overt speed detections should be highly visible and done more than covert detection. Covert detection is simply there to ensure that traffic is obeying the speed limit when a guard is not visible.

buttsoirl wrote: »

And then we have the garda car hidden on the downslope of a motorway sliproad which has a single white line and from what I remember of my rules of the road you CANNOT stop on a motorway slip road. This new style of policing is more a product of a generating revenue than for being a deterrent to speeders, if it was the latter, he would be on the elevated "garda vehicles only" platform acting as a VISIBLE deterrent..

Operating a speed check from the on ramp of a motorway if not the best spot cos if a speeder is detected they are already above the 120kph so say they are doing 140-150kph, the car has already passed the patrol car so the patrol car has some major catching up to over a longer distance and probably higher speed too.
I dont think it revenue generating but rather covert detection and is ok with me as long as the overt policing is done to a greater extent.
Any emergency vehicles can parked wherever they like as long it doesn't cause an obstruction or is parked in a dangerous manner. If a patrol car is parked on the on ramp I would hope they are parked on the grass.

buttsoirl wrote: »

why is it that the gardai can break or bend laws when it suits them????

As above any emergency vehicle can park where they like as long it doesn't cause an obstruction or is parked in a dangerous manner.

nhughes100

They've been on the M4 east bound just as the motorway 2KM ending sign is, ppl usually head up the hard shoulder since traffic is backed up from the first Celbridge slip road. There was an accident there on Monday morning with an Audi in the overtaking lane deciding to cut across into the hard shoulder for the quick nip but she was ploughed by someone who decided the hard shoulder should have the same speed limit as a motorway.

Gardai on it every day this week despite the fact that that section of motorway has been jammed since the schools started back. Interestingly twice this week the person pulled has been a mammy with kid in tow in the front seat.

Driving in the hard shoulder of a motorway is illegal and fkn dangerous and ignorant too so I'm personally delighted to see this, if only the Gardai could put a man on duty on the Woodies slip road to help merge traffic onto the M4 then there would be no bloody traffic jam in the first place!

Blazer

It's just stupid checking for speeding on dual carriageways.
I was on the Limerick-Adare dual carriageway yesterday and TC were checking for speeding.
Guy in front of me slams on his brakes to bring his speed down from 120kph to 80kph and I ended up having to swerve around him (I was going at approx 105kph) as there was a load of cars up my ass.
I was anticipating he'd drop to 100kph but not another bloody 20 below the limit..bloody gimp

TheNog

Mathew Reilly wrote: »

It's just stupid checking for speeding on dual carriageways.
I was on the Limerick-Adare dual carriageway yesterday and TC were checking for speeding.
Guy in front of me slams on his brakes to bring his speed down from 120kph to 80kph and I ended up having to swerve around him (I was going at approx 105kph) as there was a load of cars up my ass.
I was anticipating he'd drop to 100kph but not another bloody 20 below the limit..bloody gimp

I wouldn't blame the TC. I'd blame the guy in front of you. Hes the idiot

jd

daveharnett wrote: »

I don't know how many times i've seen this idea mentioned and debunked. I'm guessing you heard it from a mate in the pub, and assumed it was true, because you wanted it to be?

To misquote the boards motto, evidence or gtfo.

EU directive

http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:32000L0007:EN:HTML


From the eu regulation..
2.3.7. the speed displayed must never be lower than the actual speed. Between speed V1, read on the speedometer and actual speed V2: there must be the following relationship with the test values specified in item 2.3.5 and between those values:
0 <= (V1 - V2) <= 0,1 · V2 + 4 km/h.

If you are travelling at 100km/hr the speedometer MUST read between 100 km/hr and 114 km/hr
If you are travelling at 120 km/hr the speedometer MUST read between 120 km/hr and 136 km/hr

You may think you are travelling at 120 km/hr but it might only be about 105 km/hr

Sandwich

Mathew Reilly wrote: »

It's just stupid checking for speeding on dual carriageways.
I was on the Limerick-Adare dual carriageway yesterday and TC were checking for speeding.
Guy in front of me slams on his brakes to bring his speed down from 120kph to 80kph and I ended up having to swerve around him (I was going at approx 105kph) as there was a load of cars up my ass.
I was anticipating he'd drop to 100kph but not another bloody 20 below the limit..bloody gimp

If you had to swerve then you were not maintaining a safe distance between your vehicles. Drive safely rather than blaming others for your own mistakes.

Say his braking had been prompted by a child running onto the road rather than the speed check. You might have killed the child in your swerve manoevre.

bryanmurr

Mathew Reilly wrote: »

It's just stupid checking for speeding on dual carriageways.
I was on the Limerick-Adare dual carriageway yesterday and TC were checking for speeding.
Guy in front of me slams on his brakes to bring his speed down from 120kph to 80kph and I ended up having to swerve around him (I was going at approx 105kph) as there was a load of cars up my ass.
I was anticipating he'd drop to 100kph but not another bloody 20 below the limit..bloody gimp

Well you should stay further back from the car in front if you have a car close behind you. This allows you to extend your own breaking and cuts out the need for you to brake hard if the fella in front jams on.

Bee

Mr Magnolia wrote: »

How or why do you think it may be illegal?

Also, they've been doing it for years.

Leather clad mustachioed gentlemen holding their tools behind bushes and then they, as so elequently described by buttoirl " come up behind you and thats you buggered"

Surely that has to be illegal in a public place!

Sad that despite the Garda propaganda to the contrary, that they are doing their usual thing of "shooting fish in a barrel" rather than promoting road safety. :mad:

I.S.T.

Sandwich wrote: »

If you had to swerve then you were not maintaining a safe distance between your vehicles. Drive safely rather than blaming others for your own mistakes.

Say his braking had been prompted by a child running onto the road rather than the speed check. You might have killed the child in your swerve manoevre.

So you've never had a close call then? Are you the perfect driver?

Blazer

Sandwich wrote: »

If you had to swerve then you were not maintaining a safe distance between your vehicles. Drive safely rather than blaming others for your own mistakes.

Say his braking had been prompted by a child running onto the road rather than the speed check. You might have killed the child in your swerve manoevre.

I was waiting for someone to say this..the fact is I could have easily braked hard but the cars behind me would have ran into the back of me..
The fact is the gimp in the pickup should have adjusted his speed to the current limits not slamming on his brakes and putting cars at risk behind him just for a TC.
Even the TC was looking at him slamming on his brakes and nodded as I swerved to avoid him.

The thing I'm saying is at every checkpoint some idiot will always slam on their brakes even when they're under the limit.
It happened again yesterday in Kildimo..not me
50kph zone ..traffic corp in visible range...some guy 2 cars up from me slammed on his brakes to about 10mph..car behind him blew the crap out of him.
I was just pulling out of the petrol station so was only doing about 20mph so was still about 30 yards from this..