Now a THIRD GoSafe van is torched

Humans eh!

Between to Castleblayney and Ardee on the N2 there is usually a speed van in various locations but it is usually on great stretches of clear road and can be seen from a great distance away. Usually the traffic slows on approach to the van and once passed its business as usual. Have to admit most of the craziness I have seen on this route is from northern reg cars, what is the situation with residents of the six counties?
Are they subject to the same penalties and fines as southern reg cars, I genuinely don't know????

So as not to go off topic I disagree both with the vans and especially with damaging them risking the safety of the operator. I do see that most of my fellow motorists are too stupid and ignorant to police themselves. However I am a bit wiser with age and stick to speed limits as a matter of safety and I just don't believe in dying (or killing) just to shave minutes off a journey that will be completely irrelevant by tomorrow.

challengemaster

corktina wrote: »

what ever people may say on the Internet, reduce speed and you reduce the severity of accidents.

Somewhat backwards thinking. Accidents can happen at any speed under any set of circumstances and can still be lethal, you're not giving any distinction between types of accident. If reducing speed is the answer to everything, why hasn't there been a blanket 30km/hr speed limit for all roads?

The point of these vans is to educate drivers to drive slower. If the point of them is Tax Revenue (and Lord knows we need it from every possible source), then isnt that a bit self defeating to use a source where the take will be decreasing as people wise-up?

These vans are not there to educate drivers to drive slower, that's just the idea which makes people believe they're actually doing some good. They're revenue generators, just like gatso vans before them. If you read the motoring forum, you'll find that a number are hidden, or covered in muck, anything to reduce the visibility of them, which is what will cause people to slow down.

Only a matter of time now until speed limits are reduced further as oil prices rise....

Neither here nor there, but if the governments take wasn't so large on the price of fuel, things really wouldn't be this bad.

corktina wrote: »

much simpler to fit speed limiters...cant be THAT hard tecnologically....Is the political will there though?

Of course it can be hard technologically - First issue is, what do you set the limit to? If you pick 120km/hr which makes it useable on motorways, that can still be too fast for a single car back road.... and still quite a high speed to be involved in a head on collision at. So, we're on to variable limits? in which case, you're talking about some form of GPS controlled limiter that changes every time you pass a road sign? Means getting people to cover every road in Ireland, build this GPS device, build the mapping for it, map all the areas and EVERY speed limit in the country, then assemble enough devices to put in every car in the country, and more which are imported, then fit them all by trained car electricians....

Also, what about situations where you need to floor it to actually get out of a sticky situation? Too bad?

Seriously? Given how well we already manage things at the minute.... You may want to tell the IMF that we'd like another few billion.

DWCommuter wrote: »

While some may think that an Irish dislike to a concept that prevents them from speeding is the reason for hating these vans, I feel it has more to do with more harmful crimes generating less of a crackdown, while petty crimes like out of date road tax are easy targets. Speeding and drink driving which are potentially murderous crimes are caught in this mix. People seem to feel aggrieved that they are caught quicker for road traffic offences than murderers, rapists, terrorists, muggers, bankers (new one on the list:D) or just the scumbag that punches the head of you on the street.

I believe there is a very unbalanced approach to the Law in Ireland and this causes a lot of public bad feeling. It doesn't justify setting fire to one of these vans, but it does possibly explain the mindset. Personally I am sick and tired of seeing the huge Garda presence on our roads while other more aggravating crimes go unpunished and receive less focus. Funnily enough I experienced an example today in my local shop. A fine sunny morning, so I played some ball in the park with my daughter and went home via the local shop. While in there 3 "kids" came in and blatantly stole 3 six packs of soft drinks. They were brazen and didn't even attempt to be sneaky about it. The girl behind the counter obviously got upset, called the Gardai and I waited to back her up. The Garda arrived, was told the story, knew who had done it, went off to enforce the law and then came back to explain that it will probably go nowhere useful as they are minors with previous form. The owner of the shop was advised that he can get an "injunction" to prevent them entering his shop. (big money)

So getting back to transport. One of my vehicles currently has out of date road tax while awaiting repairs for a DOE, but still on the road. I simply do not have the resources to get all repairs done in one go, so its a step by step approach. I drive it in fear of being caught, even though it will be back taxed at no loss to the state once it passes the DOE. It could be technically impounded under the RTA. The risk of being caught is high. So when this example is benchmarked against my little experience in the local shop this morning, its easy to see why a hatred of these mobile speed camera vans has developed.

Equality is a great word, but appears to be defined differently in Ireland.

Please Note: I did not set fire to these vans.:D

It's about time someone said this, because it's what everyone already knows just nobody is willing to speak out about it. There are countless crimes that go unpunished every day, and most don't even get proper garda attention.

Another example is my friend a few years ago heard some noise outside his house at night, looked out and saw that his jeep he was using for work (carpenter) had some lads around it trying to break into it. He shouted out the window at them, threw on some clothes and went after them, saw them take off in whatever car they arrived in. He called the gardaí, got the usual 'we'll send someone out as soon as we can' response which means someone won't be there until tomorrow, when they're long gone and there's no fear of being caught. His response was "No need, I've a shotgun here and I know which way they went" - The gardaí were at his house within minutes.

I've heard countless other stories very similar, be it house break ins, car robbing or anything which requires immediate garda attention. Yet it seems perfectly acceptable to shoot fish in a barrel with these revenue cameras on roads with ridiculous speed limits.

couldntthink wrote: »

As pointed out by someone else, it's the fact that the cops seem to be constantly harping on about this and that crack down on speeding. In my opinion they focus on this because it's easy to catch people speeding. Speeding will always be a problem unless they target the source of the problem instead of the result of the problem. The result is speeding while the source is attitude. There will never be enough cops or cameras to stamp out speeding but they can do something about driver education. Our legislation is pathetic, and our testing system is irrelevant in the real world.

Mr. Judgement you must forgive my seemingly negative attitude towards law enforcement. My car was stolen, cops told me to look for it myself, my dad's trailer was stolen while parked outside a garda station with the typical "theres very little we can do", I could go on and on with more examples of this type. I also think you must be a very good judge of character to be able to decide I have no respect for the law. Never even had my name taken, no traffic offences, I pretty much never break the speed limit unless by about 5 or 6 km/h. Yet I have to suffer driving behind people doing 50 - 60 in a 100 zone with 2 or 3 knobheads behind who won't overtake. You then end up with a line of frustrated motorists who then try and overtake several cars at once. When will these people be prosecuted for what I consider to be reckless driving. Bear in mind I do understand some people drive slow, but pull over every now and again because you are a menace.

+1

dynamick wrote: »

Killing someone in a speeding vehicle is a worse crime than rape, mugging & bank fraud.

I've a feeling that some rape victims might disagree with you there.

Road safety policy is saving 200 lives a year compared to 5 years ago and has clearly been one of the most effective allocations of state resources.

GoSafe cameras are not operated by the gardai so they don't divert garda attention from other offences.

Complete BS - so much so I don't even know where to start...but Tragedy seems to cover it pretty well in his post.

As for not diverting garda attention for other offences.... have you any actual proof that there's been an increase in garda productivity since these gosafe vans came in? Or the gatso vans before that?

Tragedy wrote: »

Absolute unmitigated lies.
There are 200 less road deaths a year compared to 5 years ago.
How many of them are down to

• Improved/Newer roads
• Safer cars
• Less people driving
• RSA Road Policy

is something no-one can answer.
But one thing is definite, you can't attribute all of them to the states road safety policy :rolleyes:


True, but they're being paid €16million a year that could be spent elsewhere. Like on improving, enlarging and educating the Traffic Corps perhaps, where we would see rewards based on more than dropping peoples speed a few km/h?
Vans don't catch dangerous driving, they don't catch people going too fast for the conditions, they catch people going over an arbitrary limit that can be lower or higher than it should be.

Hilighted the important parts here - because the facts are most gardaí are still driving around with full privelages to break the law in the course of duty, without any actual driver training for these situations. Most are still on the signiture of the super (first example from google)

dynamick wrote: »

Maybe you're not familiar with the state's road safety strategy. Safer roads, safer vehicles, education, enforcement and legislation were all included in 126 actions set in 2007 to reduce fatalities. The improvement was dramatic and can't be argued with. The policy was massively successful.
http://www.rsa.ie/Documents/Road%20Safety/RSA_Strategy_ENG_s.pdf

Safer roads? You quite clearly don't drive, or else you must be blind to not notice the massive craters which have formed in the roads around the country recently. The only "safer" roads are motorways in the last few years, which are safer by nature. There's a much less chance of a head on vehicle collison which would result in road deaths.

Safer vehicles? Well considering we don't make any vehicles, I assume you mean the joke which is the NCT. Yet another money making racket.

Education - well our driver education is still very, very poor. The test is still quite poor and the fact there's something like a 40%+ fail rate shows how bad driver education actually is.

Enforcement - I suppose these vans are included then? As tragedy has stated, they only catch people going above an limit which has been plucked out of thin air by the council. They also do NOT save lives on the road, in fact, they tend to cause more accidents. Here's a news article dated from 2002

Speed checks don't save lives either - as getting a fine in the post 2-3 weeks later doesn't help.

Checkpoints - checking the car has an NCT disk and tax disc aren't life saving either..

I can count on 1 hand the number of times I've seen actual enforcement where a dangerous driver has been caught. And to do it, I have to form a 0 with two fingers.

They result in lower average speeds, allowing more time for avoidance manoeuvres, leading to fewer collisions and reducing the severity of those that do occur. This leads to fewer deaths and serious injuries.

No, read the article above. They result in harsh braking to avoid speeding tickets, which can cause accidents.

dynamick wrote: »

Local councils have the power to set speed limits (RTA 2004)

Yet another example how people who have no clue about how to do something, have to power to do it.

corktina wrote: »

Generally its fast drivers who are less safe not slow ones and its the fast guys the Vans are out to reduce.

Actually, I'd say its the opposite. If you're driving fast you pay more attention to whats going on. And in the time I've been driving, I've seen more near misses and accident causing behaviour by people driving too slow than too fast.

Victor

Can people refrain from using imfamatory language?

Tragedy

dynamick wrote: »

Irish multi-annual road safety strategies didn't start in 2007, they started in 1998. The 2007 strategy is the third strategy document in an evolving series.

Great, you're the one who named 2007. Every time I push you on a point, your 'facts' suddenly change.

National policy has an influence on vehicle safety through for example the NCT and DOE testing services, legislation & garda enforcement of unsafe vehicles,

Do you have any evidence to back this up?

contributions at European level to the formulation of standards that have led to mandatory seatbelts, ABS, and now ESC etc.

Do you have any evidence to back this up?

My apologies; I must have you confused with other anti-speed limit posters. What you did say was that the millions spent on the new speed camera contract would be better spent elsewhere, whereas in fact the safety camera program comes at no net cost.

It's never been claimed that it comes at no net cost, to the best of my knowledge.

Is speed not a contributory factor in all accidents? The lower the speed the less serious the collision and the more time to take evasive action.

No, unless you also include "being on a road", "being in a car", "being a human being" as being contributory to all accidents.

Fact: Speed is not considered a contributory factor in the vast majority of accidents.

Not going to bother with your nonsense any further, if you have any facts I'll discuss them, otherwise can't be bothered

monument

Did he/r just question if the NCT improves the standards of cars on the road?

Speed may not be the main factor in all crashes happening, but higher speed increases the chances of injury and death.

dynamick

The cameras aren't that noticeable compared to the UK fixed cameras that have signs giving you time to lamp on the brakes. Without a satnav warning, I'd expect that a lot of people are going to be receiving fines in the post in the coming months. They'll swear a lot but after receiving a second fine, you'll see people seriously slowing down.

12 million speed checks a year means that every car in the country will be checked on average 6 times a year. That's a lot of chances to get done. If you're the kind of person who's generally speeding all the time, it becomes unaffordable. Accident rates should drop as a result.

As pointed out earlier in the thread, road surfaces are disimproving rapidly with the poor weather and lack of maintenance funds, so that won't help the numbers. All the more reason to slow down.

SeanW

corktina wrote: »

How much does one fatality on the road cost? I take it from your lame objections that you like to speed?

How long is a piece of string? And BTW I don't speed very much, for one thing obeying 80 and 100kph limits is a handy way to save fuel.

But it's nice to know your assumptions are as half-baked as your suggestions.

corktina wrote: »

re people driving too slowly...yes, they are annoying but did you ever stop to think that they might not be safe to drive faster?

Then they should either:

1. Pull over and let the convoy behind them pass.
2. Failing that, get off the road because they're obviously not capable of driving safely or courteously.

challengemaster wrote: »

Somewhat backwards thinking. Accidents can happen at any speed under any set of circumstances and can still be lethal, you're not giving any distinction between types of accident. If reducing speed is the answer to everything, why hasn't there been a blanket 30km/hr speed limit for all roads?

...

Of course it can be hard technologically - First issue is, what do you set the limit to? If you pick 120km/hr which makes it useable on motorways, that can still be too fast for a single car back road.... and still quite a high speed to be involved in a head on collision at. So, we're on to variable limits? in which case, you're talking about some form of GPS controlled limiter that changes every time you pass a road sign? Means getting people to cover every road in Ireland, build this GPS device, build the mapping for it, map all the areas and EVERY speed limit in the country, then assemble enough devices to put in every car in the country, and more which are imported, then fit them all by trained car electricians....

Also, what about situations where you need to floor it to actually get out of a sticky situation? Too bad?

Seriously? Given how well we already manage things at the minute.... You may want to tell the IMF that we'd like another few billion.

QFT.

monument

SeanW wrote: »

Then they should either:

1. Pull over and let the convoy behind them pass.
2. Failing that, get off the road because they're obviously not capable of driving safely or courteously.

Driving slowly is highly annoying, but there's nothing "unsafe" with it.

You can't blame reactions of some other driver to slow drivers on the slow drivers.

The argument does not stand up on any level. It's a slippery slope trying to do so -- there's always chancer or people in a hurry, you'll even find the same people trying to pass other drivers already doing the limit.

Excessively slow driving without good reason should be against the law for being an nuisance, but there's no safety issue. Reckless drivers will be reckless regardless, you can't change everything just to suit them.

Tragedy

monument wrote: »

Did he/r just question if the NCT improves the standards of cars on the road?

No, I was questioning what impact Irish Road Safety Policy had on it, considering it was implemented in 2000 as part of an EU directive.
How much of an effect the NCT has had on reducing accidents/fatalities is something that is impossible to measure. Same with penalty points.

NCT was introduced in 2000. From 2000-2007, 2000 had the second lowest fatalities. If you use statistics as chilidshly and simplisticly as the RSA and users on this forum does, surely that means the NCT should have been scrapped for causing more people to die? :rolleyes:

You can't argue with the statistics, you can't even question them, it's a fact that the NCT caused more people to die on roads.

Ya right.

Speed may not be the main factor in all crashes happening, but higher speed increases the chances of injury and death.

Yes, but their solution to reducing road deaths is:

Make people crash at slower speed so as not to die as often
Rather than
Make people crash less.

One is progressive and forward thinking that will pay dividends in all circumstances, the other is what a child would come up with.

Tragedy

monument wrote: »

Driving slowly is highly annoying, but there's nothing "unsafe" with it.

You can't blame reactions of some other driver to slow drivers on the slow drivers.

The argument does not stand up on any level. It's a slippery slope trying to do so -- there's always chancer or people in a hurry, you'll even find the same people trying to pass other drivers already doing the limit.

Excessively slow driving without good reason should be against the law for being an nuisance, but there's no safety issue. Reckless drivers will be reckless regardless, you can't change everything just to suit them.

The argument does stand up on one level: Tailoring laws and road safety to the psychology of drivers.

Of course, that's stupid. Psychology is stupid. Planning laws on policy on how drivers behave is stupid.

Typically simplistic argument from people who scream that speed kills.

dynamick

Tragedy wrote: »

NCT was introduced in 2000. From 2000-2007, 2000 had the second lowest fatalities. If you use statistics as chilidshly and simplisticly as the RSA and users on this forum does, surely that means the NCT should have been scrapped for causing more people to die? :rolleyes:

You can't argue with the statistics, you can't even question them, it's a fact that the NCT caused more people to die on roads.

2000 had the highest number of road fatalities of the last decade. 418 people lost their lives compared to 212 in 2010
Year|Deaths
2000 |418
2001 |412
2002 |378
2003 |337
2004 |377
2005 |400
2006 |365
2007 |338
2008 |280
2009 |238
2010 |212
http://ec.europa.eu/transport/road_safety/pdf/statistics/historical_country_gender.pdf

Yes, but their solution to reducing road deaths is:

Make people crash at slower speed so as not to die as often
Rather than
Make people crash less.

This is a false choice. In reality, both of these and many other approaches to reducing road fatalities are taken including reducing the severity of accidents but also reducing the frequency through education, enforcement, road engineering, vehicle safety, legislation and so on.

Driving more slowly is a habit. There are ways to enjoy driving that don't involve heavy acceleration on public roads & taking risks at high speed. You can do track days or use a smaller vehicle that gives a sensation of speed such as a motorbike or a mini. If your aim is to impress people or parade your status, you can get a convertible and cruise around. It's not the end of the world when you can't drive at 70km/h past a school any more without getting a fine in the post.

--edit--
for anyone wondering whether vehicle roadworthiness testing has any effect on accident rates and severity:
The effect of vehicle roadworthiness on crash incidence and severity

SeanW

monument wrote: »

Driving slowly is highly annoying, but there's nothing "unsafe" with it.

You can't blame reactions of some other driver to slow drivers on the slow drivers.

The argument does not stand up on any level. It's a slippery slope trying to do so -- there's always chancer or people in a hurry, you'll even find the same people trying to pass other drivers already doing the limit.

Excessively slow driving without good reason should be against the law for being an nuisance, but there's no safety issue. Reckless drivers will be reckless regardless, you can't change everything just to suit them.

With all due respect, that argument is like telling a judge "No your honour, I didn't kill that man, the gun did. I just pulled the trigger."

I suspect that you have never been held up for a very long time behind an irritating slowpoke, but I have, and I can assure you it can be very dangerous in the wrong circumstances. One time going down to Longford, I was on a bus (itself probably part of a long convoy) that was held up for 20 minutes-plus over a relatively short stretch of road by some fool hogging the middle-left of the road at 60kph with no overtaking opportunities.

A few weeks later I was driving down the same route when another fool was driving even worse. Again on a 100kph road some unbelievable fool was constantly yoyo-ing every few seconds between 40-60kph. Up to 60, 2 seconds later, down to 40kph, a few seconds later 60kph again. This went on for many kilometres as traffic was heavy in the other direction, and of course this tool refused to pull in to the generous hard shoulder.

Now, I don't take the view that I'm a great driver because I know that attitude is dangerous, but I do believe that I am one of the more courteous and easygoing drivers out there - you'd be hard pressed to find me doing anything aggressive or careless.

But after what seemed like an eternity behind this individual, my blood was boiling and I saw a very short window of an overtake opportunity. I proceeded to execute the fastest and most aggressive overtake maneuver I've ever done either before or since. It wasn't unsafe, at least not really, but was definitely fast and tight.

I've also been stuck behind people who drive well below the speed limit, until I (try to) pass them, when they suddenly find their inner Michael Schumacher.

People who drive like that have no business being on the roads. Full stop. At an absolute minimum, there should be some mandatory pull-over laws for travel on Super 2s and Wide Super 2 roads.

monument

Tragedy wrote: »

The argument does stand up on one level: Tailoring laws and road safety to the psychology of drivers.

Of course, that's stupid. Psychology is stupid. Planning laws on policy on how drivers behave is stupid.

Typically simplistic argument from people who scream that speed kills.

Planning laws on how drivers behave is not stupid, nor is psychology. But planning laws to suit reckless drivers is idiocy beyond belief.

SeanW wrote: »

With all due respect, that argument is like telling a judge "No your honour, I didn't kill that man, the gun did. I just pulled the trigger."

You're trying to claim that people who drive slowly are the ones who "pull the trigger" of a gun.

Madness.

SeanW wrote: »

I suspect that you have never been held up for a very long time behind an irritating slowpoke, but I have, and I can assure you it can be very dangerous in the wrong circumstances.

Yes, I have. And no it's not very dangerous, other's reactions to it can be so.

SeanW wrote: »

At an absolute minimum, there should be some mandatory pull-over laws for travel on Super 2s and Wide Super 2 roads.

Agreed.

DWCommuter

monument wrote: »

other's reactions to it can be so.

That's called instinct. It's human nature. It will happen. What do you propose?