Why don't we have speed cameras everywhere?

pa990

ironclaw wrote: »

@pa990, you really have to ask yourself what they are spending the money on. There are fully fledged businesses with less people and more overheads doing more with less than that. Insanity.

Add your reply here.

The only people making money are the GoSafe consortium.

It's a cray situation all right, I doubt it'll be scrapped anytime soon. That would only be admitting that mistakes were made.

Indricotherium

pa990 wrote: »

Add your reply here.

The only people making money are the GoSafe consortium.

It's a cray situation all right, I doubt it'll be scrapped anytime soon. That would only be admitting that mistakes were made.

But road deaths are down since it's introduction and it clearly isn't a revenue generating 'trap'.

Where is the mistake?????

ironclaw

Indricotherium wrote: »

But road deaths are down since it's introduction and it clearly isn't a revenue generating 'trap'.

Where is the mistake?????

The astronomical cost. 15 million to run? You're happy knowing your money is being spent in that manner? Do you have any idea what a private firm could do with 15 million to work on issues of driver education and enforcement? R&D for these systems alone wouldn't even come close to this. Imagine what 15 million in advertising could do! Taking a step back, imagine we paid the a Garda €15 an hour, that's 1 million hours of Garda time we could divert on to our roads, for perspective, there are 8760 hours in a year, so 114 hours per day made available, or 15 Garda on-shift per day.

Next, speed is a factor in 11% of collisions. Thats from the RSA themselves in their fact book but it gets 100% of the airtime next to maybe drink / drug driving. Why are we not tackling the other issues? NCT, Tax, Insurance to start. Or perhaps those that genuinely have no idea how to use a motorway?

We don't need speed cameras. We need enforcement. The difference between getting a ticket in the post versus a word on the roadside is chalk and cheese. Instead of 'out to get me' mentality we might actually foster 'Well, the Garda explained to me and I actually know what I did wrong. Thankfully he used his discretion and only gave me a warning. I won't do X again thanks to his explanation'

A speed camera is the equivalent of your parents saying 'Don't do it' and not giving you an answer as to why. One never learns in that scenario, in fact, it makes you resentful and probably want to do it more.

Also, there is zero correlation between road deaths going down and speed cameras (Look at many authorities in the UK that have removed them) They came into force here in the middle of the recession (2010) when we were undergoing massive unemployment and huge immigration i.e. Less people on the roads. My commute has risen from 20 mins in 2013 to perhaps 45 mins today. Absolute pure volume. More people, more chances of collisions and unfortunately a greater chance of death.

Jesus.

pa990 wrote: »

As a result, there was a shortfall of €11 million relative to the cost of the service. An Garda Síochána made up for this through money made from penalty points issued in other ways such as Garda camera vans.

I bet they did

Jayop

Indricotherium wrote: »

But road deaths are down since it's introduction and it clearly isn't a revenue generating 'trap'.

Where is the mistake?????

Handing yet another state contract over to a company who decided not to bother acting like a lean private sector company because they knew that the state would keep the €€ rolling to them.

kirving

Yeah, €17M per year is serious money, our tax money, so I'd like to be shown that these vans have actually prevented collisions and made our roads safer.

Lower fatalities doesn't cut it as proof enough for me, not when 29% of people who died last year weren't wearing a seat belt, 48 people. In 2014, over 500 people committed suicide in Ireland. Is it concievable that 10% of these chose to do it in a car to save their family the shame? In a country where 'tragic' is used for the same reason , I would argue that this is entirely plausible.

The RSA will never openly announce the actual collision rate per year. I understand why in a sense - it can get complex. Is it per no. of km driven? Per year? Cyclists included? Under-reporting?

They could do it by no of insurance claims that year?

I'm sure the data is there, somewhere, but it suits the RSA to pat themselves on the back for lower fatalities, but what isn't focused on is whether we are actually driving better, and having less accidents, or have improvements in car safety meant that the same number of accidents have just killed less people?

marno21

ironclaw wrote: »

The astronomical cost. 15 million to run? You're happy knowing your money is being spent in that manner? Do you have any idea what a private firm could do with 15 million to work on issues of driver education and enforcement? R&D for these systems alone wouldn't even come close to this. Imagine what 15 million in advertising could do! Taking a step back, imagine we paid the a Garda €15 an hour, that's 1 million hours of Garda time we could divert on to our roads, for perspective, there are 8760 hours in a year, so 114 hours per day made available, or 15 Garda on-shift per day.

Next, speed is a factor in 11% of collisions. Thats from the RSA themselves in their fact book but it gets 100% of the airtime next to maybe drink / drug driving. Why are we not tackling the other issues? NCT, Tax, Insurance to start. Or perhaps those that genuinely have no idea how to use a motorway?

We don't need speed cameras. We need enforcement. The difference between getting a ticket in the post versus a word on the roadside is chalk and cheese. Instead of 'out to get me' mentality we might actually foster 'Well, the Garda explained to me and I actually know what I did wrong. Thankfully he used his discretion and only gave me a warning. I won't do X again thanks to his explanation'

A speed camera is the equivalent of your parents saying 'Don't do it' and not giving you an answer as to why. One never learns in that scenario, in fact, it makes you resentful and probably want to do it more.

Also, there is zero correlation between road deaths going down and speed cameras (Look at many authorities in the UK that have removed them) They came into force here in the middle of the recession (2010) when we were undergoing massive unemployment and huge immigration i.e. Less people on the roads. My commute has risen from 20 mins in 2013 to perhaps 45 mins today. Absolute pure volume. More people, more chances of collisions and unfortunately a greater chance of death.

They also came in right as the interurban upgrades were finished and the days of head on collisions every week on the death-traps that were the N6, N7, N8 and N9 disappeared.