Ireland’s new network of speed cameras, operated by a private company called GoSafe, will start operations next month.
Irish motorists support the use of these speed cameras at accident blackspots to save lives, but they do not support hiding cameras in hedges in an effort to raise money. These are the findings from a major AA survey which got responses from 9,400 Irish drivers.
Motorists believe speed cameras are good for road safety, but they are also suspicious that the authorities will not put them in the right places. Many motorists express the view that it is more about making money than it is about saving lives.
The AA asked 9,400 Irish motorists whether they supported the idea of the widespread use of speed cameras to promote safer roads. Two thirds of motorists said that they did support them (67.7 per cent ), but only a quarter (25.1 per cent ) said that they trusted the authorities to put them in the right places. 63.8 per cent believed that they are mostly about raising money.
In over 1,500 individual comments received by the AA, almost half expressed the view that the cameras would be used by the Government to raise money. On the other hand, 63.2 per cent said that they personally knew of a location where they would recommend that a speed camera be installed.
“These proposed cameras might well save lives, but as it stands they have a serious credibility gap to bridge,” says director of policy Conor Faughnan. “Irish motorists have been and continue to be very supportive of positive road safety developments, like random breath tests or lowering the drink drive limit. They will support speed cameras as well but only if they are treated fairly.”
The private company operating the cameras on behalf of the Gardai will not be paid based on fines collected. They will be paid to be in place monitoring cars, but whether they catch a thousand speeders or none will make no difference to how much they are paid.
“The better a speed camera does its job the less money it raises,” says Mr Faughnan. “The perfect speed camera catches no one but causes all traffic to slow down, thereby reducing the number of collisions and ultimately saving the state substantial sums of money.”
The cameras will be located only in places where the collision data over the previous five year period indicates there have been a high number of speed-related collisions relative to the volume of traffic on the road. If a road does not meet those criteria then it won’t have a camera deployed. This methodology was devised by the AA and the NRA as part of the European Road Assessment Programme.
The locations of the speed enforcement zones will be made public.
Finally, one of the questions that the AA asked their motorists panel online survey was - “Ireland will have a new network of speed cameras operating by mid-November. To what extent had you been aware/not aware of this?”
Some 13.3 per cent said they were very aware; 38 per cent were somewhat aware; 2.9 per cent neither; with 20.7 per cent not very aware and 25.1 per cent not at all aware.
