Speed cameras fully deployed for holiday weekend

PRIVATISED SPEED cameras offering an extra 6,000 hours of traffic monitoring per month will be fully in place for St Patrick’s weekend, gardaí said yesterday.

Full deployment of the cameras comes as the number of people killed on Irish roads rose by almost 50 per cent in the first 11 weeks of the year, compared with the same period last year.

Yesterday, the Garda and Road Safety Authority held a press conference on Dublin’s Navan Road to express concern at the rising death toll and to ask motorists to take care over the holiday period.

Gardaí demonstrated a “live” Garda checkpoint that monitored compliance with regulations, including light permeability of tinted windscreens, exhaust decibel levels, and the more usual offences involving drink-driving, compliance regarding road tax, insurance and NCT, seat-belt wearing and mobile phone usage.

Gardaí expressed particular concern over recent attacks on privatised speed cameras as they were being tested at roadsides. Vans have been attacked in Monaghan and Wicklow, while on the N3 staff were verbally abused.

Assistant Commissioner John Twomey said he was disappointed by the attacks on the speed camera vans. The van personnel were attempting to save lives through road safety initiatives, he said, but had found their own lives placed in danger. He called on motorists to take responsibility for their own driving. While he said it was very early in the year to read definitive trends into the higher level of road deaths, he said they were a cause for concern.

From the start of the year to 9am yesterday, 49 people had lost their lives on the State’s roads, an increase of 15 on the same period in 2010. If that trend were to continue it would reverse five years of falling fatalities.

Gardaí said those killed did not belong to any particular geographical area or age group, but a common theme mentioned was the deaths of “vulnerable road users” such as pedestrians, who accounted for six deaths so far this year. Another such group was motorcyclists, six of whom have already died in advance of the traditional St Patrick’s Day start to the bike touring season. Vehicle passengers, another vulnerable group, account for six dead, while drivers account for 18 deaths.

On age profiles of those killed the authority said the youngest pedestrian was aged 20, and the oldest 80. The youngest biker was 29 and the oldest 55. Gardaí also said the age range for passengers killed in cars was from 16 to 30.

Mr Twomey said people should be aware that for young people one of the most vulnerable situations was that of a passenger. The age range of pedestrians killed defied the common perception that they would be elderly people.

Mr Twomey said he was calling on all road users “to take care on the roads this St Patrick’s weekend . . . Don’t make this St Patrick’s Day one to remember for all the wrong reasons.”

The privatised speed cameras are deployed across the State at more than 600 locations, some 60 of which are in the Dublin area. Each location is monitored for unspecified number of hours per month. The system is operated by the Go Safe consortium, which former minister for justice Dermot Ahern said would cost some €16 million per year. The outlay is expected to be recouped by revenue from fines.