Site crashes amid rush to look up speed traps

THOUSANDS of frustrated motorists caused a new speed camera website to crash during most of yesterday, just hours before the camera system went live at midnight.

Up to 50,000 hits overwhelmed the Garda website by lunchtime.

By evening time, gardaí were able to place a link on the page directly to the Google map (www.garda.ie/gosafe.html), which shows the 750 sites covered by the privately run system.

All counties are included, with the 750 sites in 518 zones. Some zones contain a number of sites with cameras. Donegal (63), Cork (62), Meath (52), Wexford (44) and Tipperary (40) have the most sites.

Garda Commissioner Fachtna Murphy and Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern signed a five-year €65 million contract with the GoSafe consortium to operate the cameras after a lengthy tender process.

Commissioner Murphy said he regretted the collapse of the website, but said thousands of people were trying to access it, such was the level of interest. He said camera coverage will be “cranked up”, starting with 750 hours this month, rising to a maximum of 6,000 hours in February.

“This is about compliance, preventing excessive speeding, preventing inappropriate speeding and savings lives,” said the Garda boss.

“If you speed in those zones there is a great chance you will be caught and will have committed an offence and brought through the system, having to pay a fine and get penalty points.”

Assistant Commissioner John Twomey, who heads the Garda Traffic Corps, said the sites were identified following an analysis of accident data over the last five years. He said they carried out a survey of the speed done in each area and highlighted those stretches where more than 85% of motorists were breaking the speed limit.

“The first aim is to get people to slow down and, second, specifically to slow down in these areas. If they are in collision in these areas they are more likely to be fatal,” said AC Twomey.

But he cautioned drivers not to think they could speed outside these areas, saying the 1,200 officers attached to the traffic corps will be monitoring speed and general driver behaviour elsewhere on the road network.

He said there were 198 road deaths this year, slightly under the total for this time last year. There were 240 road deaths for the whole of 2009, down from 396 in 2005.

Transport Minister Noel Dempsey said that while speed cameras were promised as far back as 1998, the proposal to use a private company emerged in 2005.

He said 50-80 people died last year as a result of accidents where speed was the major factor.

Mr Ahern said contracting out the work from the Gardaí was a “significant change” in policy and this caused some of the delay. He said there needed to be a “sea change” in people’s attitude, particularly among young people, to speeding.

The minister said this was not a money-making exercise and GoSafe was paid for on the basis of enforcement hours, not detections.

* For map see www.irishexaminer.com and www.garda.ie

* Click here for a map of the "Go Safe" Speed Enforcement Zones.