Article: Private firm set to run speed traps

edmund_f

magpie wrote:

Hear, Hear! Time to form an Irish Drivers' Association methinks.

Excellent, so who do we vote in as president?

idea i came across, posted in another thread..

just a thought,

remember watching a programme on C4 ages ago, 'Mark Thomas Project' i think it was called. He came across a problem similar to this, where ministers (in the UK) were just simply ignoring the public opinion.

What Mark suggested is that you get a home address for your 'favourite' TD and sign them up for whatever telemarketing/free sample/sex catalogue whatever via the net.

The theory was that these people had been recieving polite letters for long enough, and ignoring them. So why not send them something they cannot ignore?. From what i can remember the first time they tried this several trucks had to be used to deliver the mail. If anyone knows who or why, please let me know.. completly forgotton.

sure something like this is illegal, so i am going to say, this is just what i saw, this is my opinion, and you have to make you your own mind on how you deal with the complete opression by our goverment. I am not condoning any particular course of action.

wonder who we should pick first? any suggesions? (just hypotecially of course).


Statos -

Good for you!. Good luck with it, you have more bravery than i when i got my 2 points (albeit 56 in a 30, with not a calibration cert in sight).

ambro25

parsi wrote:

The French publicise where their fixed radars are

...but not where the Smurfs hide with the mobile ones :mad: , so it's pretty pointless IMO.

galactus

Anyone listened to RTE1 radio lately?

Derek Davis has a "bee in his bonnet" (his words) over the Gardai's approach to "shooting fish in a barrel" (again his words).

If I'd the time, money and expertise I'd get a video-camera and make a documentary on this.

The documentary would show:

- Cars speeding (dangerously and illegally) in built-up areas.
- Cars speeding (NOT dangerously and illegally) on dual carriageways.
- Gardai stopping motorists for speeding (NOT dangerously and illegally) on dual carriageways.
- Gardai NOWHERE to be seen where accidents happen
- Gardai NOWHERE to be seen WHEN accidents are likely to happen
- TDs, local councillers NOT LISTENING to their constituents when this matter is raised.
- Calculations as to the revenue obtained by the above "fish-in-barrel" practice
etc.

Its stating the obvious but the Gardai and TDs are not as effective as they should be. We pay their wages - unless your a lazy student of course This is symptomatic of the erosion of our (supposed) democratic rights.

Leaving the TDs aside, the Gardai say that it is their duty to enforce the law. Well, to my mind, they are NOT enforcing the law. Even worse they are SELECTIVELY enforcing the law for economic reasons.

Anyone have contacts with RTE, TV3, independent film makers etc. Step forward Micheal O'Moore!

edmund_f

Interesting idea,

here is part of a mail sent to the Department of Transport back in October

-BEGIN-

I noticed that generally Irish driving is excellent on motorways, due to the excellent enforcement by our dedicated professional law enforcement, and that all 'bad' driving happens where it is impossible for our resource stretched police force to do anything about it. Thus if I had a camera, or if there were a number, say 20, of cameras fitted to private individuals cars, these places would be enforced and at times and places where it would have a devastating effect on 'bad' driving. The second, and more critical, part to this is that if it became common knowledge that _any_ car in Ireland could be fitted with a camera, I would not even begin to speculate the effect on the Irish driving physic?

Some notes, if cameras were fitted, they would be sealed, and would always be on, outside the control of the owner of the vehicle

Owner of car would get a flat fee, e.g. EU1/mile for having the camera fitted
Camera would be fitted for a max of 6 months to any one vehicle (veh-he-kil?)

Cost would break down as such..

Assume you see one piece of bad driving per 100 miles (once every 2hours approx)
Say penalty for this is EU150

Therefore for every mile driven driver gets EU1.00 and government gets EU0.50

Assume each camera costs EU5,000, and costs EU500 to fit/change & EU1000/yr to service, download info etc
Also cameras last for 3 yrs
http://www.kustomsignals.com/product_body2.asp?product_id=11&cat_id=9
Thus camera cost per year is (500x2x3) + 5000 + (1000x 3) = 11,000/3 = EU3666.67

Thus if a driver covers more that 7333.34 miles per year the camera will pay for itself, without factoring in the saving of not requiring a Garda or car (50k/yr??)

As stated about I do about 10k/yr and would like to volunteer to be the first test subject, just think of all the bad driving Alfa's do.....

Another simple piece of maths is that if you have 20 cars, all doing 15k/yr => approx EU150,000 (EU0.50 x 15,000 x 20) profit from the cameras.

Again as asked above, what do I have to do to get some of these ideas piloted?

Thanks

-END-



Bit long winded, eventually got a pfo mail quoting their 'Road Safety Strategy for 2003 - 2006'

current plan is to buy a camera (once recovered from christmas) and do this myself, but send all the tapes into RTE, along with the responses from the Department of transport.

Any thoughts?

galactus

edmund_f wrote:

current plan is to buy a camera (once recovered from christmas) and do this myself, but send all the tapes into RTE, along with the responses from the Department of transport.

Any thoughts?

The only thing I'm worried about here is that RTE may not make use of the tapes. But surely there are some film-school types who could dub, edit etc.

mackerski

edmund_f wrote:

I noticed that generally Irish driving is excellent on motorways,

Only on the unopened stretch of the M50 at 3 in the morning. Elsewhere it's just as poxy as on any other road. It's just that bad driving causes fewer accidents on motorways.

Dermot

edmund_f

good point, but pretty far down the list of priorities. Thinking of getting cheap digital (works well in low light?) and just doing basic editing and putting on a DVD, plus some website someplace. Getting away from the point a bit though.

Would you support a pilot program of this nature?. one of the interesting things would be that this system would not be able to specifically target speeders, only bad driving.

would you have one fitted to your car?

edmund_f

mackerski wrote:

Only on the unopened stretch of the M50 at 3 in the morning. Elsewhere it's just as poxy as on any other road. It's just that bad driving causes fewer accidents on motorways.

Dermot

fair point, question would then have to be asked, why is it being policed so well. Alternativly, why are the smaller roads being ignored.

would you support this system?

mackerski

edmund_f wrote:

would you support this system?

No. It amounts to more effective policing, and that only becomes useful once the right things are being policed.

Dermot

edmund_f

okay, then would you support the 'private' camera idea?

Nuttzz

edmund_f wrote:

good point, but pretty far down the list of priorities. Thinking of getting cheap digital (works well in low light?) and just doing basic editing and putting on a DVD, plus some website someplace. Getting away from the point a bit though.

Would you support a pilot program of this nature?. one of the interesting things would be that this system would not be able to specifically target speeders, only bad driving.

would you have one fitted to your car?

No, I dont like this idea at all, can anyone here honestly say they have never ONCE made a mistake on the roads. The cops are appointed to police the roads, not the general public. You then have libel laws, if you posted a film of a driver in my car driving badly without been able to prove it was me on a internet site, i'd have your ass (and your assets).

edmund_f

very good,

question would be asked, what difference between a mistake and an accident?.

i would be thinking it would enforce things like, but not limited to

- not wearing your safety belt
- tailgating
- fog lamps (or fag lamps as i originally typed..)
- dangerous overtaking
- running red lights

(these in my head are not mistakes, they are bad driving punishable by law)

it would not include things like

- doing 55 in a 50
- doing 65 in a 60
- etc etc



as far as suing my ass, i have absoultly no intention of trying to proscute anyone. My plan would be to show it would work. that would be, run it, get all the samples as if it was real, then remove all identification of the people in the cars, and then supply the tapes to the media. Let the media decide if the tapes are legal or not ( i am thinking of camcorder video taken by tourists used in court?).

all i am trying to figure out here is if it would work or not.

it is the only suggestion that i have come across which deals with bad driving not speeding

which would people prefer, a non intercept gatso camera on a motorway (high revenue) or a roving camera desiged to take bad (or mistake prone) drivers off the road

yankinlk

pointless waste of time these gatso vans. Got my notice from 3 months ago in the mail today. I actually took the time to ring the number so I could at least find out where on earth I was going 51 in a 40 at 942 am.

They couldnt tell me. What is the point? Have i learned anything?

If everyone gets 2 points for something like that there will be little point for the insurance companies to up rates as they will just be upping everyone.

The fines should be higher, but the points are useless.

edmund_f

yankinlk,

good valid point, and you are totally right. where once the companies were giving a discount for no points.. soon it will be for 2 points.

but do you agree or disagree regarding the cameras?

- thinking of going off and starting a thread specifically for this -

mackerski

edmund_f wrote:

okay, then would you support the 'private' camera idea?

That was the idea I was saying "No" to. Two reasons (the one I gave already and a further one):

* Enforcement is mis-directed. Why gather evidence for an enforcement effort that's targetting the wrong things?

* "Deputy Mentality": Give a civilian one of these vigilante kits and he'll go off full of vim and vigour looking to make a difference to road safety. He then sees a reckless driver, and "gives chase", wanting to get close enough to get some good footage. Thing is, he's supposed to have his mind on the road, not whizz off tailgating supposed menaces. You might as well issue them with magmount blue lights and ticket books. There's a reason they train people before sending them out policing roads...

Dermot

galactus

mackerski wrote:

snip:

* Enforcement is mis-directed. Why gather evidence for an enforcement effort that's targetting the wrong things?

The Gardai have never admitted that enforcement is mis-directed. When they do bring up road traffic enforcement strategy its to mention that they have a limited amount of resources and the fact that they are paid to enforce the law.

Gathering evidence of this misdirection will hopefully force them to publicly acknowledge that there is an issue with selective enforcement of the relevant road traffic act.

ambro25

edmund_f, I disagree with your example assessments, to the effect that:

- not wearing your safety belt
- fog lamps (or fag lamps as i originally typed..)

constitute bad driving punishable by law. Though punishable by law, I choose not to wear my seatbelt on frequent occasions and also to use my FFs on a regular basis. I don't believe that either or both of these practices makes me a bad driver, however, in that I don't put other road users at any risk by my driving behaviour.

And in the above you can find the perfect reason WHY your system would NOT work: for the simple reason that without full knowledge of which law to enforce in which situations (for which combination Gardai are professionally trained), what is seemingly illegal/bad driving for Joe Average 1 would not necessarily appear so to Joe Average 2, such that Gardai would very soon become totally inundated with video evidence, requiring more staff & resource to review, etc, etc. ... you see where this goes - nowhere, precisely.

My plan would be to show it would work. that would be, run it, get all the samples as if it was real, then remove all identification of the people in the cars, and then supply the tapes to the media.

But why? For what purpose? I don't follow your logic, particularly if you 'remove all ID of people in the cars'. I'd have thought the purpose of your system to be that of 'naming & shaming', or passing evidence to authorities (after pocketing some cash from the media as they compile the next 'Road Wars' reality show from your video material)?

Incidentally and to get back on track - I have just been made aware by a UK colleague that her car was recently 'moved' without permission from a parking spot (in Dublin) to another spot a few dozen yards away, where it could be (and was) clamped.

If this is the kind of behaviour to expect from private firms "stretching" the enforcement to meet ever-increasing revenue targets (and there is nothing to suggest that it will not be the case with firms monitoring speeders), then public confidence in any kind of due process (and correspondingly-influenced behaviour on roads) will vanish... and it won't be long before some driver gets a major case of road rage and decides to 're-arrange' the facial/bodily features of the speed trap private employee ("not Gardai, so who TF is going to care" -style of logic).

edmund_f

mackerski wrote:

That was the idea I was saying "No" to. Two reasons (the one I gave already and a further one):



* "Deputy Mentality": Give a civilian one of these vigilante kits and he'll go off full of vim and vigour looking to make a difference to road safety. He then sees a reckless driver, and "gives chase", wanting to get close enough to get some good footage. Thing is, he's supposed to have his mind on the road, not whizz off tailgating supposed menaces. You might as well issue them with magmount blue lights and ticket books. There's a reason they train people before sending them out policing roads...

Dermot

a good point, and one i had not considered.

along the same lines, if you had a camera fitted to your car, the first thing that would happen is that you would turn into the perfect driver?, not hare off after the boy racers? (i do not mean car modifiers, i mean the ones who give the car modifiers a bad name). The camera (s?) would have to be high enough quality and positioned cleverly enough not to require any change in your driving style to catch these people?.


Criticism is always good..

edmund_f

ambro25 wrote:

edmund_f, I disagree with your example assessments, to the effect that:


constitute bad driving punishable by law. Though punishable by law, I choose not to wear my seatbelt on frequent occasions

-dont worry Darwin will sort that out.

and also to use my FFs on a regular basis.

- no comment

I don't believe that either or both of these practices makes me a bad driver,

- either do i, i am not here to judge, just to put forward an idea to improve the safety on our roads. The law does judge though.

however, in that I don't put other road users at any risk by my driving behaviour.

- no comment

And in the above you can find the perfect reason WHY your system would NOT work: for the simple reason that without full knowledge of which law to enforce in which situations (for which combination Gardai are professionally trained), what is seemingly illegal/bad driving for Joe Average 1 would not necessarily appear so to Joe Average 2, such that Gardai would very soon become totally inundated with video evidence, requiring more staff & resource to review, etc, etc. ... you see where this goes - nowhere, precisely.

But why? For what purpose? I don't follow your logic, particularly if you 'remove all ID of people in the cars'. I'd have thought the purpose of your system to be that of 'naming & shaming', or passing evidence to authorities (after pocketing some cash from the media as they compile the next 'Road Wars' reality show from your video material)?

I think you may have slightly confused the idea. (my bad explaniation strikes again) The video would be interpreted by cops. Initally to prove that the idea has merit, i would get a camera and interprete the video. I have no intention of trying to proscute anyone. Just try out an idea.

MickFarr

edmund_f wrote:

I noticed that generally Irish driving is excellent on motorways, due to the excellent enforcement by our dedicated professional law enforcement

Is that a joke??? You have obviously only driven on an Irish motorway otherwise that statement is a joke.

edmund_f wrote:

Would you support a pilot program of this nature?. one of the interesting things would be that this system would not be able to specifically target speeders, only bad driving.

would you have one fitted to your car?

No but I have a better idea for you. Why don't you stick it to your head and walk around town on a Saturday night and video tape people getting mugged from a safe distance or hide in your car and do it.

Have a nice day

Boggle

While its a nice thought - it's not really realistic. First of all, to review 100 hours of footage, a gard would have to be assigned to watch it (keeping him/her off the streets where real crime happens). Secondly, you wont be able to monitor speeding unless its connected to the spedometer. Thirdly, at what point does one call dangerous driving just that? One person's simple overtaking maneouvre could be another man's suicide jump... (i.e. some people are better able to judge than others and some people are more afraid of driving than others)

Boggle

yankinlk wrote:

pointless waste of time these gatso vans. Got my notice from 3 months ago in the mail today. I actually took the time to ring the number so I could at least find out where on earth I was going 51 in a 40 at 942 am.

They couldnt tell me. What is the point? Have i learned anything?

Fight the bloody thing. never got a ticket before but what I do know is that when accused of something you HAVE to be furnished with ALL the details so that you can adequately prepare a defence. Not knowing where said offence occured (if that's what you meant) is grounds for a dismissal. You could be able to prove you were the other side of the country for all they (and you at the moment) know!!!

edmund_f

the original comment about irish motorways was, well spotted, the lowest form of wit.

irrelevant comments regarding strapping things to other things will be politely ignored, whatever you enjoy doing in the privacy of yoru own home is your own business.

the idea is; lost of deaths on our roads, a joke of enforcement, any ideas on how to make roads safer.

thought, private cameras, not perfect but perhaps has some merit, seeking criticism and suggestions to formualte a working model of this idea

thing about cop having to watch 100 hours of tape, as opposed to standing at the side of the road with a camera for 100 hours?? which would be more effective? roving camera focused on multiple infrigements or stationary cop for speeding

system would specifically be targeted at bad driving, completly ignoring speeding, that is well enough enforced already, with no effect on the road death statistics.

the whole thing would be controlled by the cops. not by me, or any private individual.

MickFarr

edmund_f wrote:

irrelevant comments regarding strapping things to other things will be politely ignored, whatever you enjoy doing in the privacy of yoru own home is your own business.

It's just as good an idea as yours!

Or if you think you might feel embarrassed about it you could always wear a cowboy hat!

edmund_f

MickFarr wrote:

It's just as good an idea as yours!

perhaps,
but i assume you are trying to argue that the idea of fitting cameras to cars is similar to fitting them to peoples heads, and due to the fact that fitting cameras to peoples heads is a bad idea, so is it a bad idea to fit them to cars?

you should start a thread.

edmund_f

do like your sig though, always was a cat person

Boggle

thing about cop having to watch 100 hours of tape, as opposed to standing at the side of the road with a camera for 100 hours?? which would be more effective? roving camera focused on multiple infrigements or stationary cop for speeding

In the same breath you'll be complaining about gardai hiding behind bushes though. Which is it visible deterrent or or invisible prosecution.

To be honest though, how many cars would you be behind in an hour? Where would you look? What you are on about would have to be blatant wrecklessness - in which case you should just report it to the gards. It wont stop people overtaking you when you don't like it, it'll hardly protect you from tailgaters, it wont monitor speed. So what you watching for?? ... Maybe those bastards driving in the outside lane...

MickFarr

edmund_f wrote:

perhaps,
but i assume you are trying to argue that the idea of fitting cameras to cars is similar to fitting them to peoples heads, and due to the fact that fitting cameras to peoples heads is a bad idea, so is it a bad idea to fit them to cars?

you should start a thread.

Bang on!!

It's the same as saying put the camera on the front of your car except turn it around to catch your own driving skills or why not fit a black box to each car. Are we heading to 1984?

edmund_f

Boggle..

good points.
I would give out about useless invisible protection, which, in my opinion, is having no effect. (although the road fatality statistics may be argued to back this statement up)

question of how may cars/quality of video/direction etc etc would all be one that would be answered by a trial.

Just as an experiment, on your way home this evening have a look out for bad driving. In the original estimation the figure was of one detection per hour. Let us know how many you spot?

edmund_f

MickFarr wrote:

Bang on!!

It's the same as saying put the camera on the front of your car except turn it around to catch your own driving skills or why not fit a black box to each car. Are we heading to 1984?

we already in the 'Big Brother' society, one word Gatso. (or nanny state if you prefer)

I am just tyring to suggest a way of making these units more useful and effective. To actually make our roads safer. That is my primary goal, and this is just an idea.

Black box system is already available.. saw it with respect to a 'pay as you go' insurance system being trialed in the UK at the moment. (saw it on here someplace)