Pensioner caught speeding three times in one day

An 82-year-old driver from Corrandulla has been caught speeding three times in the one day.

Senator Fidelma Healy Eames said the pensioner was caught speeding by a speed van located at the main post office along the Tuam Road into the city.

“Generally speaking, 82-year-old men are not speeders,” she said, recounting that the motorist had been fined three times for exceeding the limit on the 50 kilometres per hour stretch of road.

Along the same stretch, an An Post worker was caught speeding twice while exiting onto the main Tuam Road from the post office.

“The speed limit is 50 km/h, but to get into the traffic he had to travel at 62 km/h on one occasion and 67 km/h on another; otherwise, he would have caused an accident or would never have got into the right lane,” she claimed.

Senator Healy Eames said that she knows a Galway taxi driver was caught speeding “three times in 27 minutes”.

The independent senator, a former Fine Gael representative, said she has received phone calls from Gardaí in Galway who told her that they were caught speeding in patrol cars while “travelling to a serious incident”.

She said that a speed van is “hidden” along the Coast Road in Oranmore. These covert operations, she said, would do nothing to improve driver behaviour and were designed to collect revenue.

Speaking in the Seanad, Senator Healy Eames asked the Justice Minister to “outline why speed vans and speed cameras are not located in dangerous black spots but appear to be placed in areas where speed increases out of necessity.”

She added: “The general public would hold that many of them are placed in borderline areas where the speed limit changes from 50 km/h to 80 km/h or from 50 km/h to 100 km/h and where it is easy to get caught.

“It would appear, therefore, that the purpose of these speed vans and speed cameras is to prioritise revenue collection over encouraging positive driver behaviour. If that is the case, it is blatantly unfair.”

Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald, in response, said the purpose of safety cameras is to reduce speed-related collisions and save lives. She said the location is determined by road safety considerations and not by revenue generation.

Minister Fitzgerald added: “An Garda Síochána has contracted a service provider, GoSafe, to operate safety cameras in designated speed enforcement zones.

“These sections of the road network were identified following an extensive analysis of five years of collision data for incidents in which speed was deemed the primary contributory factor.

“GoSafe operates in addition to Garda safety camera vans, which are marked and unmarked and operate both within and outside speed enforcement zones.

“This provides additional flexibility, again with the emphasis being on addressing dangerous driving behaviour.”