What next?
After driving four hours from Kerry to Dublin and seeing not one Garda car on my travels. I check RTÉ for news and I see this;
Cut-out garda car to combat speeding
Kildare County Council is putting a life size cut-out of a garda car on roadsides throughout the county to stop motorists speeding.The first cut-out was put in place on Saturday morning on the N78 at Fontstown, between Athy and Kilcullen.Kildare’s Road Safety Officer Declan Keogh says ‘the car is a heavy robust wood cut-out and is not cardboard by any means’.
He said that the location of the mock garda car was considered with effectiveness in mind, but safety was of utmost importance.From a distance motorists see what they believe to be a garda vehicle and hopefully react by slowing down.Responding to queries as to why the garda car was facing inwards, rather than outwards, Mr Keogh says regardless of which way the vehicle is facing, or the direction the garda is pointing the speed detector in, its main objective to deter drivers from speeding is in fact working.
The car will be placed at various locations throughout Co. Kildare at varied times and no notice will be given to the public on the placements.
Story from RTÉ News: http://www.rte.ie/news/2008/0630/roads.html
I think this is probably the worst idea to combat drivers breaking the speed limit. It will result in most of the community persuming all Garda cars are fake and thus ignoring them and if people do slow when they see a Garda car they will spend up after because they know there won’t be another one for miles.
As much as I hate to say this I think the only way to combat drivers breaking speed limits is to have discreet speed cameras in numerous areas across the country.
With tomorrow being the first day of provisional drivers needing a fully licenced driver in the car to be legally allowed driving, this effects approx 92,000 people. It will be a busy week for the Dep of Transport.
