Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on hello@boards.ie for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact hello@boards.ie
Hi there,
There is an issue with role permissions that is being worked on at the moment.
If you are having trouble with access or permissions on regional forums please post here to get access: https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058365403/you-do-not-have-permission-for-that#latest
There is an issue with role permissions that is being worked on at the moment.
If you are having trouble with access or permissions on regional forums please post here to get access: https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058365403/you-do-not-have-permission-for-that#latest
Is it worth while contesting a fixed-penalty notice speeding fine?
Comments
-
Folks, lay off the bickering.
If you want a primary source, ask ROSPA.
Moderator0 -
realdanbreen wrote: »My own view would be that the more times that you are caught the higher the fine should be. You have been fined three times which I would imagine means that you are speeding on a regular basis and only get caught a fraction of the time. You need to wise up before you injure somebody.
Well to be fair the penalty points system does have a built-in deterrence to repeat offending in that an accumulation of points will eventually lead to a loss of licence.
Furthermore, long before you get to that stage, you will have attracted the negative attention of insurance companies. Although they tend to ignore four points or fewer, try getting a cheap deal with six points on your licence. Not going to happen.0 -
shouldn't it be the case that the fine and points should reflect the degree of speeding.?0
-
magicbastarder wrote: »well, afaik, if you're doing 100 in a 50 zone, you can be done for dangerous driving, rather than just speeding.
Rule of Thumb in UK is that if you are doing more than 30mph (they still use miles) in excess of limit you're banned automatically. Which would correspond to doing 100kph in a 50kph zone (ie 62.5kph in a 31.25kph zone)
Going over 100mph on a UK motorway would get you a ban too. Assuming the police in their Range Rover could catch you in your Porsche0 -
savagethegoat wrote: »shouldn't it be the case that the fine and points should reflect the degree of speeding.?
Well that's one idea. And not a bad one.
Here, however is a really stupid one from the head of the Road Safety Authority.
Apparently the wealthier you are, the more you should pay. So rich guy in a Jag doing 60 in a 50 pays more than a skanger in a 10 year old Audi bombing along the same street at 120.
:rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:0 -
If you really were a Madd Finn you'd know that's exactly what they do in your home country, Finland, that is
http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-317094540 -
-
-
Advertisement
-
Deleted User wrote: »They have the same criminal responsibility as anyone else. They're just more able to pay the fine. Not sure why that's a problem for you.
As the fine might mean nothing to them, they can continue to speed and not alter their behaviour. The normal purpose of fines or any other sanction is to change behaviour.0 -
As the fine might mean nothing to them, they can continue to speed and not alter their behaviour. The normal purpose of fines or any other sanction is to change behaviour.
Lyfe's a tough old place out there folks. Fit the punishment to the crime not the person. If you have a fine in place at the level we're talking then it's already a tacit statement that nobody really considers the breach in question that serious, hence the more serious breaches already having built-in penalties beyond the financially negotiable.0 -
Victor wrote:Why should a richer person be able to buy themselves out of criminal responsibility?
As the fine might mean nothing to them, they can continue to speed and not alter their behaviour. The normal purpose of fines or any other sanction is to change behaviour.
OK put it the other way round. If you're a young man just started work, not earning a lot and you're caught haring down a country road in, say Donegal [the guy who killed eight people five years ago was in the news again today] at speeds of 130kph in a 100kph zone and you get stopped before you kill someone, should you pay less than someone, like the example you cited, doing 103kph in an 80kph zone?
And the other point is, it's all very well picking extreme examples like this (millionaire v basic wage) but as always with these means tests, the real injustices come at the margins. Why should some middle income person pay a whole whack more than somebody earning just a little less?alun wrote:
If you really were a Madd Finn you'd know that's exactly what they do in your home country, Finland, that is
Course I'm not a real Finn. It's a pun, innit?0 -
Join Date:Posts: 49854
i think the financial aspect of the penalty is meaningless, as mentioned it's nothing to a rich person, or someone moderately well off; they won't care about the fine, they'll care about the penalty points. drop the fine, and maybe increase the number of penalty points by one.0 -
magicbastarder wrote: »i think the financial aspect of the penalty is meaningless, as mentioned it's nothing to a rich person, or someone moderately well off; they won't care about the fine, they'll care about the penalty points. drop the fine, and maybe increase the number of penalty points by one.
There's loads of people who care about the fine.0 -
savagethegoat wrote: »shouldn't it be the case that the fine and points should reflect the degree of speeding.?
Yes, it should and that's part of the RSA's suggestion.0 -
Advertisement
-
I don't believe I was driving recklessly. I was keeping to a reasonable speed and frankly to ensure that I never ventured over such a low limit I would either have to drive so slowly as to encourage road rage in other motorists or keep such a close eye on the speedo that it would detract from my general observation of the conditions around me. Neither situation is desirable.Hilly Bill wrote: »You got done for a breach of a speed limit and you admit to it so no real point in appealing. As bad as some of the limits are and how safe you were driving, the only factor they are interested in is the breach of the limit.
There is also no requirement whatsoever for speed limits to have any relationship, howsoever tenuous, to what can be reasonably considered safe driving. And it shows, on N-roads that are downgraded to R-roads and suddenly become 20kph less safe despite not changing in any way, or how thousands of kilometers of road went from 60MPH/96kph to 50MPH/80kph overnight back around 2005, grade separated dual carriageways with 60, 50 and even 30 kph limits, 50 and 60kph limits well into the countryside away from the nearest town (often on wide, straight roads bounded by agricultural fields) because it's a "gateway zone" or something.
In theory a speed limit should be a maximum safe speed under the best circumstances (little/no traffic, alert and experienced driver, fair weather etc) that is not supposed to be a target but something you would regularly go under given less favourable conditions. In reality many of them however seem to set the maximum limit for the worst possible conditions many of them at best theoretical. As in some of our speed limits only make sense if you think everyone is driving a lorry, with dodgy brakes, drunk, tired, in heavy traffic on roads shrouded in fog and black ice, with ninja pedestrians/cyclists jumping out of every non-existant blind spot.Pinch Flat wrote: »How about just driving within the limit and avoiding such further notices?The speed limits are low on the Long Mile Road because there are traffic lights, pedestrian crossings, private entrances and four schools together with the associated pedestrians, cyclists, young people and turning traffic.
What I think would a lot more sense, is a regime like I once saw in North Stonington, Connecticut, where there the speed limit varies - a State Route, roughly the equivalent of a Secondary N road or UK B road - 45MPH most of the time, but 25MPH when there are likely to be children about, when this light flashes.deathtocaptcha wrote: »"It has been observed that a reduction of the speed limit on a road from 60 kph to 50 kph produced a 20 % drop in pedestrian accidents, and a 50 % drop in pedestrian fatalities"- How does this affect pedestrians that don't actually exist, because a road has a 50kph speed limit despite being rural in nature, i.e. bounded by agricultural fields, one off housing, having no footpaths and generally being the complete opposite of being a street where the above pedestrians might actually be relevant? Take this road as an example.
- Again, assuming that such gains are possible, could those gains also have been achieved by increasing pedestrian awareness of/compliance with the rules of the road? I regularly observe idiot pedestrians who either walk across red man lights without looking because they're too busy with their mobile phones or whatever, or decide that the cars approaching a junction are going slow enough that they can be forced to stop. I see this happen all the time, but I don't see the usual suspects offering solutions beyond "it's all motorists fault". I suspect road safety could be improved massively by paying attention to the antics of non-motorised users.
"Further, Ashton and Mackay reported that the boundary car impact speed for the transition from mostly severe to mostly fatal pedestrian casualties was between 50 and 60kphPinch Flat wrote: »So to summarize, everyone's wrong except our Johnny. What's your own view on the amount of pedestrians likely to be killed at 40mph / 60kph? is it a lot less than the rest of the world think?
This link puts it at between 83 - 85%, citing two different sources.
http://humantransport.org/sidewalks/SpeedKills.htmRule of Thumb in UK is that if you are doing more than 30mph (they still use miles) in excess of limit you're banned automatically. Which would correspond to doing 100kph in a 50kph zone (ie 62.5kph in a 31.25kph zone)
Going over 100mph on a UK motorway would get you a ban too. Assuming the police in their Range Rover could catch you in your Porsche
I can totally agree with this, because I regularly visit Northern Ireland, and assuming it to be representative of the UK in general, it's speed limits are credible maximum limits and can be categorised thusly:- Residential or side street: 20MPH (32kph)
- Town: 30MPH (50kph)
- In a town but very light density, e.g. urban limits, not likely to see pedestrians etc: 40 (65kph) or 50MPH (80kph).
- Everywhere else except motorways, 60MPH (96kph) (National Speed Limit).
- Motorways, 70MPH (112kph).
- Urban area regardless of density: 50kph
- if you're really lucky, 60kph.
- Countryside outside of towns: 50kph, after all, it's an "urban gateway" some bs. Again, you might be lucky and it could be 60. But that's likely to be a wide, straight road surrounded by green fields and having nothing on it except a few cars - and a speed van.
- Deeper into the countryside, non N road: 80kph. usually makes sense.
- N road: usually 100kph.
- Dual carriageway: Often 100kph but could be 80, 60, 50 or even 30kph for litte/no aparent reason.
As the fine might mean nothing to them, they can continue to speed and not alter their behaviour. The normal purpose of fines or any other sanction is to change behaviour.magicbastarder wrote: »i think the financial aspect of the penalty is meaningless, as mentioned it's nothing to a rich person, or someone moderately well off; they won't care about the fine, they'll care about the penalty points. drop the fine, and maybe increase the number of penalty points by one.0 -
There is also no requirement whatsoever for speed limits to have any relationship, howsoever tenuous, to what can be reasonably considered safe driving.And it shows, on N-roads that are downgraded to R-roads and suddenly become 20kph less safe despite not changing in any way,how thousands of kilometers of road went from 60MPH/96kph to 50MPH/80kph overnight back around 2005,grade separated dual carriageways with 60, 50 and even 30 kph limits,In theory a speed limit should be a maximum safe speed under the best circumstances (little/no traffic, alert and experienced driver, fair weather etc) that is not supposed to be a target but something you would regularly go under given less favourable conditions.In reality many of them however seem to set the maximum limit for the worst possible conditions many of them at best theoretical. As in some of our speed limits only make sense if you think everyone is driving a lorry, with dodgy brakes, drunk, tired, in heavy traffic on roads shrouded in fog and black ice, with ninja pedestrians/cyclists jumping out of every non-existant blind spot.Without reference to any example in particular, could somoene please explain why permanent (i.e. non-variable) speed limits are/should be lowered around schools? I.E. why should/does a reduced limit apply when there are not likely to be children about, e.g. a weekend evening/night?
The Long Mile Roads has these signs, not dissimilar to your Connecticut example: https://www.google.ie/maps/@53.3238834,-6.3346197,3a,75y,90h,90t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1saqv_DQhQtv2QeyRCFoxK0Q!2e0!7i13312!8i6656 which apply as follows: http://www.dublincity.ie/main-menu-services-roads-and-traffic-general-traffic-measures/speed-limits-your-areaSpecial Periodic Speed Limits of 30 km/h in the vicinity of schools located adjacent to Long Mile Road and Chapelizod Road
Thirty kilometres per hour shall be the special periodic speed limit applicable Monday to Friday on the roads specified below during the times and periods specified.
At all other times the speed limit on the public roads specified shall revert to 50 km/h.
Long Mile Road (both eastbound and westbound carriageways) from a point 10m east of it’s junction with Walkinstown Parade to a point 60m east of it’s junction with Slievebloom Park, between the hours 08.15 to 09.30 and 12.45 to 16.15.
Slievebloom Park between the hours 08.15 to 09.30 and 12.45 to 16.15.
...
The thirty kilometres per hour special periodic speed limit will apply during the following periods inclusive of dates listed:
...
2nd November 2015 to 21st December 2015
4th January 2016 to 18th April 2016
5th May 2016 to 8th July 2016
22nd August 2016 to 28th October 2016
7th November 2016 to 23rd December 2016[*]Deeper into the countryside, non N road: 80kph. usually makes sense.[*]Dual carriageway: Often 100kph but could be 80, 60, 50 or even 30kph for litte/no aparent reason.isn't that what penalty points are for?We've already done that, increased the PPs from 2 to 3 per "offense" to match the UK system. However as I've shown and can provide further evidence of if needed, breaking an Irish speed limit is more likely to be a makey-uppey victimless crime than breaking a UK one. Infinitely more likely IMHO.
But I'll compromise. How about?
* Exceeding speed limit by <10 km/h - 1 point + fine
* Exceeding speed limit by 10-20 km/h - 2 points + fine
* Exceeding speed limit by 20-30 km/h - 3 points + fine
* Exceeding speed limit by <30 km/h - licence suspension until court case0 -
If you have specific issues, raise them with your council.One does need to appreciate the traffic make-up does change when most through-traffic is removed from a road.
- Yes, there is less traffic, so it should be if anything more safe, not less.
- Not all replaced N roads saw "most" traffic disappear, when they're replaced by a new toll road many of the "Regional" roads essentially retain their national traffic characteristics.
- In the U.K. when a road is replaced by a Motorway, the old road keeps its A-designation - including the National Speed Limit. Why must "Paddy" be different?
A move in the right direction for many roads.The only place that 30 km/h exists on a grade-separated dual carriageways are specific tight curves on M50 junctions, which articulated vehicles can't safely manage at a higher speed.- Lorries may have to slow down to avoid jack-knifing, but cars don't.
- The 30kph limit applies not just to the N3 > M50S curve, but also to the N3 inbound, where it becomes the R147 after the M50S curve, well, curves off. That road does not have the same geometry.
- The 30kph limit applies before a bridge, there are several hundred metres of straight, wide road between the 30kph signs and ANY - even theoretical - danger.
- Both the N3 > R147 and N3 > M50S routes remain two lane throughout the 30kph section. Even if there was a danger of mixing fast and slow traffic, lorries would be effectively limited to the left hand lane at 30kph while cars could safely overtake them en-masse in the overtaking lane. All traffic is legally restricted to "travel only as fast and you can stop in the distance you can see to be clear" in any case, so there should be no danger, faster traffic should slow down if needed.
- It takes no account whatsoever for off-peak hours and low-traffic conditions. Put yourself in the shoes of someone approaching this junction going "straight through" that junction (i.e. from the North into the City) on Sunday at > 10PM, when you'd have a better chance of being hit by lightening that even seeing, let alone causing danger with, a lorry.
But people don't behave like that.I think you are exaggerating.The vast majority of school-specific 30 and 50 km/h limits are time-limited. However, do note that schools tend to be in residential areas and are sometimes used beyond formal school hours.
This case demonstrates the questionability of using permanent markings for schools, it doesn't involve speed limits thankfully but: here in Clonard, Co. Meath (R148, alternative to tolled M4), this road has recently been festooned with crossing yellow lines and "SLOW" "CAUTION" all over it. Total sensory overload. The only problem is that for my part, I'm only ever on it after 10PM on a Friday or Sunday evening - what exactly am I supposed to be looking out for?The Long Mile Roads has these signs, not dissimilar to your Connecticut example: https://www.google.ie/maps/@53.3238834,-6.3346197,3a,75y,90h,90t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1saqv_DQhQtv2QeyRCFoxK0Q!2e0!7i13312!8i6656 which apply as follows: http://www.dublincity.ie/main-menu-services-roads-and-traffic-general-traffic-measures/speed-limits-your-areaIt makes sense for many straight, two-lane roads, but not for many other roads.And we've seen that people, likely including gardaí, have been abusing this wholesale. The problem with penalty points is that they are a "I'll behave myself when I get caught a few times" exercise.- You'd have to be well-connected to be able to abuse the loopholes. I.E. either be a guard or be very well connected with someone with this authority.
- Lots of people are carrying points and AFAIK there have been disqualifications.
- It's presumably a lot harder to have points terminated nowadays with the scandal blown.
"victimless crime" seems to be one of those phrases used by people who like to think "I'll do what I damn like".
For example if you look on Google News Ireland for "insurance fraud" right now there are two examples of criminals walking out of court after being convicted of large scale insurance fraud. Here. and Here. Call me a horrible evil right winger if you will, but I don't think 3 PPs for breaking an arbitrary speed limit is proportionate with community service/suspended sentence for large scale insurance fraud - jail time and lots of it being proportionate for the latter.
In the case of road law, I'd settle for a theoretical victim as well, but only if the theory makes sense. Driving at excessive speed qualifies, as does driving drunk/high.But I'll compromise. How about?
* Exceeding speed limit by <10 km/h - 1 point + fine
* Exceeding speed limit by 10-20 km/h - 2 points + fine
* Exceeding speed limit by 20-30 km/h - 3 points + fine
* Exceeding speed limit by <30 km/h - licence suspension until court case0 -
I've analysed speed limit bye-laws in the following areas.
I've done this on my own time and at my own cost.
In the vast majority of cases where the wrong speed limit has been applied, the limit is too high - perhaps 200,000 people living in housing estates with 80 km/h speed limits or no speed limit.
Councils are relatively quick to correct low speed limits when they are pointed out, e.g. 50km/h on the Waterford Bypass, but hand-wring when it comes to reducing speed limits in urban areas. The Minister requested councils reduce speed limits in housing estates. The response from Donegal County Council was so miserly that only 1-2% of the population live on roads with reduced speed limits, although that is high compared to many council areas - the only 30 km/h speed limits in Fingal are on the M50 (this changes in January 2016).Two problems:- You'd have to be well-connected to be able to abuse the loopholes. I.E. either be a guard or be very well connected with someone with this authority.
- Lots of people are carrying points and AFAIK there have been disqualifications.
- It's presumably a lot harder to have points terminated nowadays with the scandal blown.
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/environment/esb-warns-shannon-level-rising-as-snow-ice-and-rain-forecast-1.2464659
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/judge-highlights-serious-flaws-in-justice-system-1.2463796Victimless crime is a real phenomenon, and it usually causes more trouble than it solves.0 -
Advertisement
-
-
I've analysed speed limit bye-laws in the following areas.
I've done this on my own time and at my own cost.In the vast majority of cases where the wrong speed limit has been applied, the limit is too high - perhaps 200,000 people living in housing estates with 80 km/h speed limits or no speed limit.The Minister requested councils reduce speed limits in housing estates. The response from Donegal County Council was so miserly that only 1-2% of the population live on roads with reduced speed limits, although that is high compared to many council areasthe only 30 km/h speed limits in Fingal are on the M50 (this changes in January 2016).http://www.irishtimes.com/news/environment/esb-warns-shannon-level-rising-as-snow-ice-and-rain-forecast-1.2464659
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/judge-highlights-serious-flaws-in-justice-system-1.2463796
The phrase 'victimless crime' is often put forth in situations where there is no one immediate victim, but that there are large numbers of secondary victims.
Victimless crime is a real phenomenon and we seem to be making more and more victimless crime laws every year, for various reasons not just in transport. Yes, I agree there can be "secondary victims" and the law should protect them where they could be credibly argued to exist, but for the kind of speed limits I posted above, I consider the likliehood of there being secondary victims in those cases to be extremely remote.0
Advertisement