CAUGHT YOU! OUR WORST SPEED TRAPS
Revealed: The top 10 blackspots over the past f ive years – and how many millions have been raked in
SPEEDING fines paid by motorists have jumped an astonishing 63% from €4.6m in 2012 to a €7.5m last year.
And some €4.7m was collected between January and September of this year alone – more than the entire sum collected in 2012.
Meanwhile, documents released to the Irish Mail on Sunday under Freedom of Information legislation show that some roads are ‘repeat offenders’: 23% of speed fines collected annually accrue from less than 1% of Ireland’s network of speed cameras.
The MoS today reveals for the first time the Irish roads where motorists received the most fines over the past five years.
The highest earner for speed cameras over the past five years is a stretch of the N11 near Arklow which racked up a staggering €594,160.
Counties Kerry, Dublin, Galway, Cork, Kildare and Wicklow feature prominently in the top blackspots. And the figures show that one stretch of road on the N7
in Co. Kildare has two of the highest-earning speed traps.
Adjacent spots on the N7, near Kill in Co. Kildare, racked up a combined total of €700,240 in a period that ran from January 2015 to September 2016. It is not known if the two spots are on the same carriageways. Such is their proximity they may represent traps on each side of the road.
Speed cameras have been deployed at 1,031 speed enforcement zones across Ireland since May 2016. The total sum of money collected in the past number of years totals €27,800,000.
Some €6.3m of this has been earned from the 35 individual speed traps. This represents 23% of the speed fines collected in that time.
The GoSafe consortium initially won the €80m contract to run a network of speed vans across Ireland in 2009. That contract expired last November and was re-awarded to GoSafe this summer in a five-year deal worth up to €115.5m.
A spokesman for An Garda Síochána told MoS: ‘Revenue in respect of GoSafe fines is taken into the Garda Vote [‘vote’ meaning a tranche of Exchequer funding for the Garda] to fund the operation of the GoSafe system.’
Earlier this year, the Garda Traffic Corps appealed for motorists to slow down after setting up 355 new speed enforcement zones in blackspots across the country.
These new accident hotspots were identified after analysis by gardaí. More than half of these new spots are located on regional roads and almost one-third on national roads.
Almost €4m has been collected in revenue over the past five years from the counties which feature in our top 10 multi-annual offending counties.
Conor Faughnan, director of consumer affairs for AA Ireland, told the MoS that 2016 would be remembered as a ‘step backwards’ in terms of road safety due to the amount of road deaths on Irish roads this year. ‘I have myself routinely engaged in conversation with motorists who feel that speed cameras are a money-making racket.
‘I do not think it’s a money-making racket: it actually costs more to run the Go Safe system than it raises in fines.
‘Where it does make money for the government is in preventing crashes.’
Mr Faughnan added that motorists were approaching one of the worst times of the year for road deaths. And following what he called a ‘poor’ year for road safety, he also said: ‘2016 is going to be remembered as a step backwards rather than forwards for road safety.’
A spokesman for the Road Safety Authority said it was ‘disappointing’ to see the number of people speeding on Irish roads increase in 2015 compared with the 2012 figures.
However, the RSA noted the publication earlier this year of a report that found that in almost a third of 867 fatal collisions between 2008 and 2012, excessive speed for the road and conditions were cited as a contributory factor; 19% cited excessive speed as the sole contributory factor. The RSA spokesman added: ‘It is encouraging to see that enforcement of our speed limits in collision prone zones is being prioritised. ‘People need to remember that the system is about stopping people speeding and not catching them speeding,’ he added.
The focus of the safety camera operations was on ‘enforcing legislation with a goal of saving lives’ according to gardaí. The system was never envisaged as a revenue raising exercise,’ added a spokesman.
The privatised speed camera system has led to numerous court challenges, with cases being dismissed in a number of courts over concerns about the ability of a private operator to give evidence against individuals in court.
Another key issue raised in the court cases has been the inability of both the gardaí and GoSafe to prove the proper delivery of fixedcharge notices to those caught speeding.
In October 2015, then-transport minister Paschal Donohoe said new software would help prove delivery of fixed-charge notices at a cost of €6.5m.
€27.8m collected over the past five years ‘Drivers feel it’s a money-making racket’