Go Safe / Safety Camera - Could this really be about safety??

hougl0xdktibzv

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Cookie_Monster

of course its all about money making.

that's a brand new road built to the highest standards, there's no way it can have a history of "identified as having a significant proportion of collisions whereby, in the opinion of the investigating Garda, a safe speed was exceeded."

And if it by some miracle actually does then its clearly a very badly designed road

munchkin_utd

Abel Stocky Gofer wrote: »

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I 100% agree.
A safe speed is not necessarily the speed of the speed limit.

The limits are random numbers invented and thrown on the roads in most cases.
Before it was 55mph (88.5kph) now we have either 80 or 100 depending on Regional or National Road. What has changed? Are national roads suddenly that much faster to drive? And ALL parts of national roads?

• We have National roads with dangerous hairpins, or deadly series of hairpins with a 100km limit. Roads where 80kmh would be quite dangerous, but 100kmh is allowed.
  
• And newly downgraded National roads, that months ago were "safe" at 100kmh and now are 80kmh!!
  
• And theres regional roads and bohereens where your car could be going out of control well below 80kmh, yet these will never incur you a ticket, no matter how many people get killed on a stretch or how many people carreer into a tree.
  Why????? Because you are below "the limit"

Policing a set of limits that are plucked from the air completely randomly doesnt seem like the best thought out strategy that this government has ever come up with.

If your STRATEGY is to enforce a limit for safetys sake, then the limit MUST reflect what is safe!!!!! Otherwise you are just enforcing an utterly random number plucked from the sky.

NOTE: this isnt a call for 1000s of localised limits, BUT in a relatively small number of recognised dangerous areas where say 100kmh (or the 80kmh regional limit) is well beyond safe, you arent going to get a safety benefit by policing a crazily high speed limit.
The camera men will be sitting measuring people doing say 90kmh ploughing into each other!!! Certified "safe" according to the limit but the people will be dead due to driving faster than is safe for that stretch of the road.

hougl0xdktibzv

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Victor

Isn't that the old, unimproved road, not the bypass? It may overlap partially with the bypass as the zones are done in 8km blocks.

The have zones at several locations where there is a change from motorway to other road.

http://www.openstreetmap.org/?lat=52.8384&lon=-6.1224&zoom=14&layers=M

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Arklow,+Ireland&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=39.047881,93.076172&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Arklow,+County+Wicklow,+Ireland&ll=52.845653,-6.112776&spn=0.013167,0.090895&z=14&layer=c&cbll=52.845638,-6.112758&panoid=KGXPK3zINNr7uvzVhiN_TA&cbp=12,18.7,,0,1.43

hougl0xdktibzv

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Carawaystick

Abel Stocky Gofer wrote: »

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It's from Hurley's plant hire depot (across from the speed trap) south to the southern ends of the ramps off the M11N/ on to the M11S.

The fact it's on the HQDC section where I can't remember any fatalities and the single carriageway section probably has it's fatalities increased by the death of Senator Enright and the two joyriders who crashed on that section.

Also the main street in Arklow???

Apart from the lad murdered by being driven into I can't remember too many crashes on the main street.



Similarily, on Wellington quay section in Dublin, I though the fatalities there were truckers driving over people they couldn't see and stopped busses running over passengers? hardly speed related, especially as the limit is only 60% of what it was.

lottpaul

The first section includes Scratnagh cross where there have been numerous accidents, some fatal.
The Arklow section doesn't seem to make much sense - there are so many crossings, roundabouts etc. Only bit could be the section from the last roundabout to the M11.

bmaxi

Abel Stocky Gofer wrote: »

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So instead, you bully them into driving at 90kph. If you think forcing someone who is probably already uptight to get even more wound up, is contributing to road safety, think again.

AngryLips

According to the RSA website that stretch of road has seen three fatalities and three casualties (2 serious) arising from road collisions over the period 2006-2008. All cases were at speeds in excess of 100kph.

Carawaystick

AngryLips wrote: »

According to the RSA website that stretch of road has seen three fatalities and three casualties (2 serious) arising from road collisions over the period 2006-2008. All cases were at speeds in excess of 100kph.

How many injuries or deaths happened on the grade seperated Dual carriageway or the M11? None according to the RSA website.

What about the main street in Arklow?

AngryLips

I don't know. That's all the info available on the website.

Popoutman

Yes, the private consortium contract does not incentivise the catching of motorists exceeding the local speed limit. However, the consortium is restricted and forced to work within the zones that the Gardai have marked out.
It seems that while there are a number of areas that are fairly marked as accident zones, it really does appear that a significant number of the zones have been chosen because of ease of capture and not the aspect of motorist safety.

• Galway, N6 to the roundabout with the N18. This is a stretch of wide single carraigeway with wide hard shoulders making safe for a camera van to sit for hours. It's a known speed trap for the Gardai, but there have not been accidents here as far as I know.
• Limerick, Sixmilebridge through the Condell Road. DC or wide single carraigeway, pedestrians are seperated from the roadway, yet it's a lower limit than you expect for the quality of the road. There are a number of areas along this road where the Gardai have sat in the past out of the flow of traffic but with great sightlines to oncoming traffic. Very few accidents along here as well.
• Tipperary, N24 from Tipperary towards Limerick Junction. This stretch had one fatality in the past decade where a child ran into oncoming traffic (that was within the local speed limit). The road quality has been re-engineered over hte past decade with many improvements with road markings and camber changes, and it's now easily safe for 100kph.
• Carlow, the old dublin road. This is the old Dublin road, that had been 100kph for years, but recently was changed to 80kph. It doesn't help that this road comes off the motorway. The only recent accident was where a truck drove into a roundabout - nothing to do with excessive speed, just driver error.
• Galway, the road past the airport. In my opinion, the speed limit on this road is artificially low. Again there are wide hard shoulders and a low speed limit in place. Again I don't remember much in the way of accidents on this road.

If the list was genuinely referring to safety I would have expected a number of the known problem areas to be included, at least until those regions were re-engineered to remove the problem. One example of this type of area that is a problem but is not included would be the bad bends where the 4 student girls were killed on the N17 near Milltown. But, there isn't anywhere to park a van along that road safely.

My impression of the scheme as it is being implemented is that the favourite areas of hte Gardai are still being included, even though those areas are not safety problems, there's a problem with the limit being too low in those areas.

BrianD

popoutman wrote:

yet it's a lower limit than you expect for the quality of the road.

Why would it be lower than you expect when there's a sign to say what the limit is. We got rid of general speed limits a few years ago so the motorist can expect nothing other than what the speed limit on the signage says. The onus is on the motorists is to obey the posted limits - if they aren't observing these then perhaps they shouldn't be on the road.

Glad to see that you seem to be able to draw your own interpretation of road accidents.

popoutman wrote:

The only recent accident was where a truck drove into a roundabout - nothing to do with excessive speed, just driver error.

Or would that driver error be driving too fast to be able to negotiate the roundabout. In my experience, most roundabout incidents is where the driver has hit the roundabout at high speed - evidenced by the damage to signage etc.

AngryLips

Popoutman wrote: »

it really does appear that a significant number of the zones have been chosen because of ease of capture and not the aspect of motorist safety.

Is it possible that there is a portion of motorists who will be less likely to offend if caught doing so on a previous occasion? So, conversely, the likelihood of detection will have a positive effect on road safety?

Victor

I imagine these will evolve over time, reacting to how people are behaving on the motorway systema nd more importantly as they come off it.

Popoutman wrote: »

[*]Galway, N6 to the roundabout with the N18. This is a stretch of wide single carraigeway with wide hard shoulders making safe for a camera van to sit for hours. It's a known speed trap for the Gardai, but there have not been accidents here as far as I know.

Where is this? Do you mean the R446?

[*]Limerick, Sixmilebridge through the Condell Road. DC or wide single carraigeway, pedestrians are seperated from the roadway, yet it's a lower limit than you expect for the quality of the road. There are a number of areas along this road where the Gardai have sat in the past out of the flow of traffic but with great sightlines to oncoming traffic. Very few accidents along here as well.

You'll be able to drive from Belfast to Ennis with only the traffic lights at Newlands Cross. This is the only section with uncontrolled breaks in the central median. I suspect some people would also be doing 120km/h because they don't realise that its not a motorway.

[*]Galway, the road past the airport. In my opinion, the speed limit on this road is artificially low. Again there are wide hard shoulders and a low speed limit in place.

Too many houses and also the traffic lights with the N18.

Again I don't remember much in the way of accidents on this road.

Its not that an accident actually happened, but the road matches the profile of other roads where accidents did happen.

jack presley

I've driven some of the non National roads they have these camera vans scheduled for and they're narrow with no where practical for them to park. How's this going to work? Will they set up in someone's front garden or will they just not set up on them and concentrate on the National roads?

Victor

jack presley wrote: »

I've driven some of the non National roads they have these camera vans scheduled for and they're narrow with no where practical for them to park. How's this going to work? Will they set up in someone's front garden or will they just not set up on them and concentrate on the National roads?

There may be novel means used.

BrianD

Victor wrote: »

There may be novel means used.

There's no indication whether the councils/NRA will be putting up signage on the road sections targetted for enforcement (as in the UK). It would be a major gap in the plan if they didn't. Perhaps the councils should be obliged to pur accomodation bays on the roads as part of the plan.

The PSNI don't seem to be adverse to using peoples gateways to site their speed traps (granted they are handheld/tripod) but there would still be a vehicle. I suppose some people wouldn't object to having a person "of authority" sitting outside their house for a while. Free security and all that.