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Whereabouts has this happened?
One of the issues I've noticed is that camera notices are going up at places where crashes have occurred, but were caused by drink-driving, which has absolutely no relation.
..clearly demonstrated by the recent rise in road fatalities.
It is not speed that kills and injures people My goodness!!!! I hope you were joking when you wrote that Werner?
The number of Irish road deaths fell to 212 in 2010, the lowest level on record, down 26 from 2009. The Government’s road safety target of achieving no more than 252 deaths per annum by the end of 2012 was achieved three years ahead of schedule.
Speed limits are man made, I hope it's not the same men that put the road markings down.
Executive Summary
The objective of a safety camera project is to reduce the number of speed related
collisions by:
1. increasing compliance with speed limits across the entire road network;
2. reducing the speed of vehicles at locations that have a speed related collision
history; and
3. acting as a deterrent to driving at excessive speeds.
The use of camera technology will result in increased volumes of detections of traffic
offences thereby achieving greater general deterrence (section 2.1).
The Government Road Safety Strategy 2004-2006 (page 25 of Strategy) proposes that
“An Garda Síochána will enter into arrangements for the engagement of a private
sector concern for the purpose of the provision and operation of a nationwide
programme for the detection of speeding offences” (section 3.1).
For any safety camera project to be successful, the public must recognise that its
purpose is to save lives and is not related to revenue collection (section 4).
The operation of safety cameras is more appropriate for a private service provider
than for the Garda for a number of reasons: the Garda Síochána cannot achieve
critical mass in terms of enforcement; private service provider personnel will require
mainly technical training; it would be efficient to transfer the risk represented by
advances in the technology to a private service provider; and it would also be more
efficient for a private provider rather than the Garda to provide back office capability
such as processing camera detections and issuing fixed charge notices as these are not
core policing matters (section 5).
Proportionality The cameras will be used to increase compliance with speed limits
across the entire road network; and to reduce the speed of vehicles at locations that
either have a speed related collision history or are of a type where a higher than
expected frequency of collisions may be expected to occur; and by so doing increase
road safety (section 6.1).
Fixed Site or Mobile Camera Units Because of the characteristics of the State’s road
network, the use of mobile cameras is the practical approach, although the use of
fixed cameras may be relevant at a small number of locations, for example, at a
limited number of motorway and dual carriageway locations with a previous history
of speed related collisions and at collision locations where a limit has been reached in
engineering improvements (section 6.2 and Appendix).
Covert or Overt Both methods will be used, as the mobile cameras will be capable of
operating in either fashion. The decision on how a camera will operate at a particular
site will be decided by the Garda Síochána. In the first year, 20% of observations
should be overt and 80% covert, with this mix to be reviewed after the first year of
operation (section 6.3 and Appendix).
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Site Selection (See Appendix) The National Roads Authority (NRA) have analysed
the road accident database for speed related accidents in order to link speed checks to
where and when speed related accidents are happening.
The result is a matrix of proposals to link speed checks to speed related accidents:
· More speed checks at weekends than on weekdays;
· More speed checks between midnight and 03.00 than at other times;
· Motorways and dual carriageways to have less than 3% of speed checks;
· 50% of the speed checks on national roads and 50% on non-national roads;
· Urban national and rural roads should have a higher proportion of camera hours;
· 15 - 20% of checks on Heavy Goods Vehicles (HGVs).
Site selection will be made by the Office of Safety Camera Management (see below).
Number of Sites The project will commence with approximately 500-600 locations
countrywide (about 15-20 locations per local authority). The number of locations will
be increased as necessary to get the road safety result sought (section 6.5 and
Appendix).
Funding Initially, when the outsourced service is fully functional, the revenue from
speeding fixed charges will be considerable - prospectively €70 million per annum.
However, as driver compliance increases, this will decrease, but it is anticipated that it
will continue to exceed the cost of operating the system. Having obtained the views
of the Garda Síochána, it is the view of the working group that payments to the
private provider and increased Garda costs should be met from an appropriate
increase in the Garda Vote (section 6.6).
Processing
A number of options are possible. It is recommended that the private operator’s
processing office would also process Garda non-intercept speeding detections. In the
longer term the private operator’s processing office could take over all the work of the
Garda National Processing Office in addition to processing the operator’s speeding
detections (section 6.7).
The Garda Síochána would monitor evidential issues by the assignment of Garda
personnel to the private operator’s processing office.
Legislative Changes It will be necessary to provide authority for non-Garda
personnel to operate safety cameras and process their output (sections 6.8 and 6.9).
Design and Execution of Speed Management Process The Appendix sets out the
detailed design and execution of a speed management programme (section 7).
Organisational Model
The Garda Síochána will be responsible for the project. The project will be managed
at three levels:
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Safety Camera Supervisory Board chaired by an Assistant Commissioner. It will
establish:
- the criteria for enforcement site locations;
- enforcement tolerance levels;
- setting and monitoring of performance indicators and quality standards
(section 8.1).
Office for Safety Camera Management headed by a Garda Superintendent. It will
manage the day-to-day running of the project, such as:
- financial control;
- reporting;
- monitoring of operations;
- communications;
- site selection;
- consultation
- performance management.
Its performance indicators/targets should be:
- number of vehicles checked;
- number of offences detected;
- rate of capture of images of offending vehicles;
- rate of issue of fixed charge notices.
It will report to the Safety Camera Supervisory Board (section 8.2).
Private Operator The private operator will:
- provide mobile safety camera units; camera operators; and a processing
system to view images;
- identify vehicles;
- issue fixed charge notices and nomination notices (to enable the registered
owner of a vehicle to nominate the driver when the offence was committed if
not the registered driver);
- identify notices not paid;
- where payment is not made, prepare a prosecution file for the Garda Síochána;
- submit management reports to the Garda Síochána;
- facilitate enforcement site location inspections (section 8.3).
Speed Does Not Kill!It is not speed that kills and injures people My goodness!!!! I hope you were joking when you wrote that Werner? RSA spokesman said "“Reducing your speed by just 5% could reduce road deaths by 20% and injuries by 10%. But breaking the speed limit by just 5km/h could mean the difference between life or death for pedestrians, cyclists or unrestrained passengers travelling in the car. Hit by a car at 60km/h, 9 out of 10 pedestrians will be killed. And the faster the speed, the more serious the consequences."
Last Saturday afternoon while driving from Wexford to Enniscorthy, I passed 2 Speed Vans ( Gatso's) and 1 motorbike Guard policing the road.
It's only 15miles...surely 1 Van would have been sufficient..,
The revenue raising Speed camera vans do little for road safety as can be clearly demonstrated by the recent rise in road fatalities. The fatalities have little to do with "speed". All the speed camera vans do is extract a profit and do nothing for road safety.
THE number of motorists caught speeding almost tripled in a year after privately operated speed cameras were deployed nationwide.
In March 2010, just over 9,500 motorists were caught breaking the speed limits by gardai.
But this soared to 26,000 in March this year, after the arrival of the private GoSafe cameras.
The private cameras, located at known speed crash zones, are operating in addition to the speed checks carried out by gardai.
Drivers who are caught by the GoSafe cameras get two penalty points on their licences, and are fined €80.
Four points are applied if a motorist takes the case to court and loses.
Gardai said yesterday the company was paid by the hour rather than by the number of catches.
A total of 61 people have died on the roads since the start of the year, five more than the corresponding period in 2010.
However, the GoSafe vans are different, and the problem is not the vans. They are advertised and signposted, so if you get snapped by one, whose fault is it ?
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