Speed Trap Ballyowen Road, last weekend

CreepingDeath

Two guards, one on a motorbike were enforcing the 50kph limit on Ballyowen Road near the Penny Hill last weekend.

Hiding behind the bus stop before the Penny Hill, catching people driving Northbound in the direction of the Penny Hill & Woodies.

It's not in their updated "safety zone" locations on the Garda website.

Talk about shooting fish in a barrel, a 2 lane road ( 1 bus lane ), with excellent visibility, wide pedestrian paths and no houses directly on that road.

Google street view link

Anyway, just a heads up, in case it's a regular weekend thing.

regards,
CD

stoneill

Pure money making racket on that road.
If they bothered their hole to stop the plebs speeding down the bus lane at busy times then that would be something.

westdub

CreepingDeath wrote: »

It's not in their updated "safety zone" locations on the Garda website.

Talk about shooting fish in a barrel, a 2 lane road ( 1 bus lane ), with excellent visibility, wide pedestrian paths and no houses directly on that road.

Google street view link

Anyway, just a heads up, in case it's a regular weekend thing.

regards,
CD

So you have never seen kids or other people crossing that road?

The ''Safety Zone'' locations that you refer to are only the locations for the ''Gosafe'' camera vans.... The Gardai can pop up anywhere with their speed traps and their own camera vans are also liable to be parked up anywhere...

Like they say... Its only people breaking the speed limit that have to worry about them... A couple of weeks back I was on the Lucan Bypass at night and was passed out by a car doing at least 40km faster than me and as I thought to myself that idiots like that never seem to get caught the car was lit up by the flash from a Garda speed van parked near woodies and the speeder then decided to slow down to about half the speed limit....:rolleyes:

r3nu4l

I can't stand speed cameras on Motorways but in urban or built-up areas I'm for them. However, I'd prefer much more visibility, not hiding away.

Fresh Pots

Noticed a new speed camera sign has been put up across from the bus stop at woodies. I wonder will we be seeing a van parked up outside malloys before long?

Corkbah

CreepingDeath wrote: »

Two guards, one on a motorbike were enforcing the 50kph limit on Ballyowen Road near the Penny Hill last weekend.

Hiding behind the bus stop before the Penny Hill, catching people driving Northbound in the direction of the Penny Hill & Woodies.

It's not in their updated "safety zone" locations on the Garda website.

Talk about shooting fish in a barrel, a 2 lane road ( 1 bus lane ), with excellent visibility, wide pedestrian paths and no houses directly on that road.

Google street view link

Anyway, just a heads up, in case it's a regular weekend thing.

regards,
CD

Next time .... park up and take pics of them .... at best you might make some money - if you send them to the papers (at worst they ask you to stop - they cant force you to stop taking pics in a public place to the best of my knowledge, but they can direct you to leave the area and then do you for failing to adhere to instructions of a garda ...and you could challenge them on their reason to ask you to leave.)

average_runner

Its only the private vans that are on the safety zone.
Garda vans and themselves can be anywhere. They been on that road for the last 5 years doing speed checks

Heroditas

I hadn't seen them on that stretch near Pennyhill for a while. They used to be there quite a bit in the past.
They're often also further south on that road down by Grange Castle Golf Club around the bend in the road heading north towards the traffic lights at the junction with New Road.

average_runner

Heroditas wrote: »

I hadn't seen them on that stretch near Pennyhill for a while. They used to be there quite a bit in the past.
They're often also further south on that road down by Grange Castle Golf Club around the bend in the road heading north towards the traffic lights at the junction with New Road.

Aye, they were on Paddys day. Also they used to be on Griffeen Avenue near Grange Manor at one stage.

Another one is on the N4 after the dip to go under the bridge, the superquinn exit!

I see most of them when running different routes around Lucan!!

unkel

r3nu4l wrote: »

I can't stand speed cameras on Motorways but in urban or built-up areas I'm for them.

This road is a few miles long and mainly straight. There is a pavement, a cycle path, a bus lane (not in use) and then on the very inside on this very wide road there are the driving lanes. There are regular pedestrian crossings with traffic lights

This is the last road in Lucan where a sneaky strict speed regime should be enforced imho

There's cars (more often than not boy racers) doing 70-80 km/h on Griffeen Avenue (a highly built up area of estates and schools) and there's never a speed check there that I have heard off and I'm sure there are dozens of other more "worthy" roads that should be monitored more often...

Broadsider

Another fish in the barrel place is on the M4 heading into town JUST after the M50 interchange. The limit is still 60kmph ...
I was doing 65kmph the other night passing the van (my wife spotted it as we went past ... )

Hopefully I'll be alright!

r3nu4l

unkel wrote: »

This road is a few miles long and mainly straight. There is a pavement, a cycle path, a bus lane (not in use) and then on the very inside on this very wide road there are the driving lanes. There are regular pedestrian crossings with traffic lights

This is the last road in Lucan where a sneaky strict speed regime should be enforced imho

There's cars (more often than not boy racers) doing 70-80 km/h on Griffeen Avenue (a highly built up area of estates and schools) and there's never a speed check there that I have heard off and I'm sure there are dozens of other more "worthy" roads that should be monitored more often...

I know the road well, everytime I travel from Lucan to Tipperary I use it to access the N7. It's full of roundabouts and I've been driving on it right on the speed limit (GPS speed limit) and been undertaken by someone entering the bus lane and racing ahead of me only to stop at the lights and for me to glide up behind them again. Plain fact is there is no reason to speed on that road and while I don't agree with sneaky speed traps I think it's fine to have a 'safety camera' on. <-- I can use bold to emphasise a point too

I do see the point that there may be more worthy roads but my experience of this road is that undertaking and speeding do happen and I have witnessed a speeding car having to slam on brakes because a kid decided he was going to cross in front of it. I've seen plenty of kids cross the road at points that didn't have pedestrian crossings on them and I know that when I was a kid I certainly didn't consider walking to a pedestrian crossing before legging it across the road.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not a stickler for the speed limit, on Motorways and A roads in the UK my average cruising speed is about 85-90 mph when the speed limit is 70 mph. I've been known to drive a lot faster than that on occasion too. So this isn't a high-horse post. Plain fact is that the road needs mobile speed traps until people learn to take their time and as you've highlighted, so too does Grifeen Road (and others). It would be good if they could vary their locations so that people come to expect that they could be anywhere but the hiding of speed cameras is something I'm totally against.

CreepingDeath

Broadsider wrote: »

Another fish in the barrel place is on the M4 heading into town JUST after the M50 interchange. The limit is still 60kmph

Technically it's the N4 once the motorway ends before Lucan.
I know that spot and have seen a speed trap there a few years ago.

But in fairness, that spot has 2 off-ramps from the M50 merging left and right, with the potential for cars from either side needing to cross 2 lanes to take the next left/right or the garage.

On second thoughts, when I think about my original post, and the speed trap location, I imagine it's there to stop drivers ploughing through the traffic lights late on the Penny Hill crossroads.

Broadsider

CreepingDeath wrote: »

Technically it's the N4 once the motorway ends before Lucan.
I know that spot and have seen a speed trap there a few years ago.

But in fairness, that spot has 2 off-ramps from the M50 merging left and right, with the potential for cars from either side needing to cross 2 lanes to take the next left/right or the garage.

On second thoughts, when I think about my original post, and the speed trap location, I imagine it's there to stop drivers ploughing through the traffic lights late on the Penny Hill crossroads.

I totally agree .. My OP didn't suggest it was an inappropriate speed , just that most ignore the limit , so it's a good day out for the polis!!

average_runner

unkel wrote: »

This road is a few miles long and mainly straight. There is a pavement, a cycle path, a bus lane (not in use) and then on the very inside on this very wide road there are the driving lanes. There are regular pedestrian crossings with traffic lights

This is the last road in Lucan where a sneaky strict speed regime should be enforced imho

There's cars (more often than not boy racers) doing 70-80 km/h on Griffeen Avenue (a highly built up area of estates and schools) and there's never a speed check there that I have heard off and I'm sure there are dozens of other more "worthy" roads that should be monitored more often...

There used to be speed checkpoints on Griffeen Avenue, about 4 years ago.

unkel

r3nu4l wrote: »

I know the road well, everytime I travel from Lucan to Tipperary I use it to access the N7. It's full of roundabouts

The speedtraps are always on the stretch between the N4 and the junction with Griffeen Avenue. There haven't been any roundabouts in that stretch for about 8 years or so

Most of the road south of that junction (this is the road you refer to, presumably) has a speed limit of 80km/h which is more than enough. It is rare to see anyone speeding anywhere between there and the N7.

unkel

average_runner wrote: »

There used to be speed checkpoints on Griffeen Avenue, about 4 years ago.

Haven't seen speed checkpoints myself but there were plenty of checkpoints where you were stopped (presumably for tax etc.) until recent times.

r3nu4l

unkel wrote: »

The speedtraps are always on the stretch between the N4 and the junction with Griffeen Avenue. There haven't been any roundabouts in that stretch for about 8 years or so

I know, the speed traps are in the areas they are supposed to be in, the built-up area with loads of housing estates either side of the road. The part I was undertaken on (by the guy going into the bus lane) was on the section between the N4 and Lidl, he wasn't turning left at the Penny Hill traffic lights either.

So once again, due to the built-up nature of the area and the fact that people drive up yer ass and undertake in an attempt to get ahead, the speed traps are a necessary deterrent imo. I hate speed traps on HQDC's with a passion but on a rat-run road or access road in a built-up area they're not so bad.

Most of the road south of that junction (this is the road you refer to, presumably) has a speed limit of 80km/h which is more than enough. It is rare to see anyone speeding anywhere between there and the N7.

Yep, rarely any speeding there and it's a nice speed limit for the road, simply because it's not built-up.

unkel

r3nu4l wrote: »

due to the built-up nature of the area and the fact that people drive up yer ass and undertake in an attempt to get ahead, the speed traps are a necessary deterrent imo.

My reasoning is the opposite

The road is wide and very far away with no direct access to housing. There are seperate bus lane / cycle lane / foot path and several pedestrian crossings with traffic lights. All this keeps vulnerable people safely away from cars

The speed limit is too low. It makes no sense. When a law makes no sense, people will break it. That's why people drive up yer ass and undertake (and speed)

Speed limits should be in place where breaking them would be directly dangerous to other people. Driving at 60-70km/h on this stretch of road (R36 between Penny hill and Griffeen avenue junctions in both directions) is not unsafe

Remember the limit used to be 50mph (80km/h) here, with the same housing on all sides of the road, when this road was one lane, with no bus lane, and no cycle path...

r3nu4l

unkel wrote: »

The road is wide and very far away with no direct access to housing.

You must have been a very good boy as a child never to have hopped over a wall and headlong across a road with your mates.

The limit is perfectly safe and sane. On that road, I've witnessed kids do the same sort of thing I used to do as a kid (on other roads) and as I've described above. Quick hop over a wall, onto the footpath and belt it across the road like a bat out of hell.

You're just wrong (in my own opinion of course...i.e. the only one that matters on the internet)! Also, just because the limit used to be 50mph doesn't mean that limit was right.

So you think it's okay to undertake by driving into a bus lane while it's operational? Interesting. Why not just go through those pesky red lights that slow you down while you're at it? :pac:

Seriously, it's very built up there and I have no problem with the limit on that stretch of the road and the limit rises appropriately (by your own admission) when the road leaves the built up area.

Question: Do you really think you're gaining even one minute of extra time on your journey by traveling at 60 or 80 km/h on that short stretch of road? Check your sat-nav sometime you are speeding on it and another time you are adhering to the limit, it won't change your estimated arrival time.

unkel

r3nu4l wrote: »

Question: Do you really think you're gaining even one minute of extra time on your journey by traveling at 60 or 80 km/h on that short stretch of road?

I rarely drive that stretch of road

And when I do, I stick to the speed limit. Unfair as it is