‘Disgraceful’ use of speed vans to catch Kerry fans on the road home

SIR, When Kerry played Dublin recently in the All-Ireland Football Semi Final in Croke Park, between Duagh and the Six Crosses, six speed vans were purposely deployed at the time that Kerry supporters were entering the county coming home from the match. Further down in South Kerry, four more speed vans were deployed just at the time to try and catch Kerry supporters coming home from the match on that Sunday.

This, in my opinion, is disgraceful. I am all for road safety, but to be purposely deploying extra resources to try and catch Kerry supporters coming home from a match is a disgrace.

On Monday, September 19, in Farranfore village where speed vans are never deployed, a van was secretly parked in a very discrete location within the town limit trying to catch motorists who may be doing one or two kilometres more than the required speed limit.

Again this is trickery of the worst type. When the whole idea of speed vans was envisaged it was to save lives and to be open and transparent in identifying where the vans were located and creating an awareness amongst motorists to slow down and keep within speed limits. Now it appears to be a money-making exercise and a method of doing everything they can to increase the amount of penalty points bestowed upon road users and, in many cases, be the cause of people losing their licenses.

I have been in contact with the Chief Superintendent about the behaviour in some of the places that I have outlined and also in other areas like Fossa, just outside of Killarney, where it is like shooting fish in a barrel the way they are catching people for being a couple of kilometres over the speed limit.

Motorists are being unfairly targeted with penalty points and fines, in my opinion. These are respectable, law abiding people who just might happen to be doing a couple of very small kilometres over the speed limit and they are now paying a very heavy penalty for it. Sinerely, Michael Healy-Rae T.D. Sandymount, Kilgarvan.