I mean it sounds like the van was doing its job and the judge is throwing a strop because it’s too effective at slowing people down at an accident black spot – the “fish in a barrel” comment is telling.
Anyways probably better just to have hidden speed cameras dotted at random.
Really weird that the judge blames the van and not the drivers themselves for the dangerous driving. If they were monitoring their own speed and staying below 50, they wouldn’t need to slam on the brakes. The idea of having vans and not fixed cameras is you can never know where they are on a given day, so you stick to speed limits out of habit. If everyone can see them a mile off, slow down, then speed up again, they aren’t much use, are they?
Also, I didn’t think a judge would throw around the word entrapment like that. Doesn’t someone have to induce you to commit a crime for it to be entrapment?
The judge is trying to punish the operators for doing what he considers dangerous but is too dumb to see that those speeding were also going something dangerous but yet let’s them away with it. Doesn’t make sense.
> “He was also concerned that many of the cases clocked motorists at 59km/h”
We learnt from a court case a few years ago in Limerick that Go-Safe vans only issue fines if you are 8 km/h above the limit.
Presumably this is to reduce the amount of people who would contest the fine on the grounds of calibration.
They lost me at “breaks” 
“jamming on their brakes” so they’re either speeding or don’t know how to react to speed vans…
Lucky day for those caught and got away with it
Have people just lost the ability to understand the nuance of a situation before. People shouldn’t be speeding but actively causing accidents under the guise of reducing speeding is even worse.
There needs to be balance in catching speeding and safety, the judge is saying this stretch of road and placement of the van behind a wall on land which it is not clear who owns is not appropriate. This private company is given a general area of an accident blackspot, that is not sufficient.
When I was in Vancouver, Canada, I heard announcements on the radio each morning as to where the speed vans would be set up that day. The idea was to alter behaviour, not necessarily to catch anyone speeding.
“It’s hiding in behind a wall. It’s shooting fish in a barrel and that’s not doing what it should do, which is slowing down traffic…this is entrapment the way it’s being done.”
This is a worrying comment from a judge. It’s nothing close to entrapment.
They are almost always placed on stretches of road with stupid low limits in particular 60 that should be 80 or a stretch of motorway that drops to 100 from 120. Going these speeds is breaking the rules but it is rarely a dangerous speed. Haven’t been done for speeding but these vans boil my piss.
Poor signage and poor positioning is the cause of plenty of this.
Many places the limit goes from 100 to 50 due to a filling, pub and a Church along the road. There’s no signs saying ” limit reduces to 50 in 200 meters”, speed van parked up a few years inside the 50 zone. It’s grand when you know the road but how many people don’t know the road.
What I found rather astonishing was that 11% of the cases were struck out because of improper paperwork by the Gardai. That’s a huge margin of error.
Fuck that’s did pay for 87 in 80 zone and 3 points
14 comments
I mean it sounds like the van was doing its job and the judge is throwing a strop because it’s too effective at slowing people down at an accident black spot – the “fish in a barrel” comment is telling.
Anyways probably better just to have hidden speed cameras dotted at random.
Really weird that the judge blames the van and not the drivers themselves for the dangerous driving. If they were monitoring their own speed and staying below 50, they wouldn’t need to slam on the brakes. The idea of having vans and not fixed cameras is you can never know where they are on a given day, so you stick to speed limits out of habit. If everyone can see them a mile off, slow down, then speed up again, they aren’t much use, are they?
Also, I didn’t think a judge would throw around the word entrapment like that. Doesn’t someone have to induce you to commit a crime for it to be entrapment?
The judge is trying to punish the operators for doing what he considers dangerous but is too dumb to see that those speeding were also going something dangerous but yet let’s them away with it. Doesn’t make sense.
> “He was also concerned that many of the cases clocked motorists at 59km/h”
We learnt from a court case a few years ago in Limerick that Go-Safe vans only issue fines if you are 8 km/h above the limit.
Presumably this is to reduce the amount of people who would contest the fine on the grounds of calibration.
https://LimerickLeader.ie/news/home/649382/no-margin-of-error-as-speeding-cases-are-dismissed-at-limerick-court-hearing.html
They lost me at “breaks” 
“jamming on their brakes” so they’re either speeding or don’t know how to react to speed vans…
Lucky day for those caught and got away with it
Have people just lost the ability to understand the nuance of a situation before. People shouldn’t be speeding but actively causing accidents under the guise of reducing speeding is even worse.
There needs to be balance in catching speeding and safety, the judge is saying this stretch of road and placement of the van behind a wall on land which it is not clear who owns is not appropriate. This private company is given a general area of an accident blackspot, that is not sufficient.
When I was in Vancouver, Canada, I heard announcements on the radio each morning as to where the speed vans would be set up that day. The idea was to alter behaviour, not necessarily to catch anyone speeding.
“It’s hiding in behind a wall. It’s shooting fish in a barrel and that’s not doing what it should do, which is slowing down traffic…this is entrapment the way it’s being done.”
This is a worrying comment from a judge. It’s nothing close to entrapment.
They are almost always placed on stretches of road with stupid low limits in particular 60 that should be 80 or a stretch of motorway that drops to 100 from 120. Going these speeds is breaking the rules but it is rarely a dangerous speed. Haven’t been done for speeding but these vans boil my piss.
Poor signage and poor positioning is the cause of plenty of this.
Many places the limit goes from 100 to 50 due to a filling, pub and a Church along the road. There’s no signs saying ” limit reduces to 50 in 200 meters”, speed van parked up a few years inside the 50 zone. It’s grand when you know the road but how many people don’t know the road.
What I found rather astonishing was that 11% of the cases were struck out because of improper paperwork by the Gardai. That’s a huge margin of error.
Fuck that’s did pay for 87 in 80 zone and 3 points
YES !