Smile, you're on speed camera. Like it or not, the Government is implementing speed cameras accross the country. So read on if you want to learn about them.

What exactly is a speed camera and should I be worried about them?

As the name suggests, it is a device for monitoring the speed of a moving vehicle. It does this by recording the amount of time it takes to cover a pre-set distance.

If the vehicle is yours and you are the person driving it, a couple of days, or weeks, later you get a nasty surprise through your letterbox in the form of a fine and penalty points.

If you were in a serious hurry, that surprise could even be a summons to appear in court. Incidentally, the PC term for them is safety camera.

What do they look like and how do they work?

A speed camera is a big, grey box fixed on top of a big, grey poll.

Distinctive white lines are painted on the road where the camera is aimed in order to help the camera get calibration. The camera takes two photographs within a very narrow time margin, usually about 0.5 seconds. The vehicle's position, relative to the white lines on the road, can be used to calculate the vehicle speed.

This is quite accurate and is admissible as evidence at court.

Understandably, the finer points of how they work are not heavily publicised but at least now you have the general idea.

I have a radar/laser detector; I’m invincible so I am.

Not really. I used one of these items in the UK, where they are legal, last year and it was hopeless. The best it could do was inform me that we had just passed a speed camera, but not once did it tell us that there was a speed camera ahead of us.

However, a friend of mine in the United States, where they are legal in most states, swears by his even though it cost him more than $800.

In the US there is an argument that radar detectors have a safety benefit as they encourage people to slow down before they reach a speed camera instead of just driving past and getting a ticket.

Regardless, radar detectors are illegal in Ireland. If a garda spots you using one, he or she will pull you in, read you the riot act and confiscate the thing.

I have fancy number plates/special spray so the camera can’t read my number plate.

If you have writing on your number-plate which is not of the correct, legal font you will get pulled over.

The Gardai are well aware of the fact that a plate that can’t be read by the naked eye can’t be read by a speed camera, so they will haul you over if your registration is in gothic script or something equally illegible.

If you have paid good money for a can of spray to make your number plate invisible to speed cameras then you have just wasted your money. Usually, they don't work.

Even if they do the Gardai, if they follow the examples in the UK, will track the car by make and model. Not only will the driver have to contend with a speeding fine but altering the number-plate in such a way is also highly illegal.

Ok, so I can’t avoid them. My licence is doomed right?

Not necessarily. The Government and the Gardai say that these cameras are there to protect road users and save lives.

They have seen the negative reaction speed cameras caused in the UK - a significant number are vandalised every year - and they don’t want a repeat of that.

They will be making the public aware of their presence on the roads both generally as well as in specific locations and informed drivers should have no need to fear them, so they say.

Yes, but it has nothing to do with road safety, it’s just another stealth tax isn’t it?

In terms of revenue generation, the planned 600 speed cameras across the country will still be small fry in relation to Vehicle Registration Tax, Stamp Duty and all those other essential taxes that relieve you of your money every week.

However, speed cameras do pay for themselves, so there is a fiscal benefit insofar as speed cameras are not costing anyone any money.

In terms of road safety, the benefits of speed cameras are debatable.

France and Australia are two countries that claim to have used speed cameras with great success. Indeed, the French government recorded a 5.4% drop in accidents resulting in death or serious injury in 2005 over the previous year and this statistic is repeated every year.

Critics in France argue that the French police never enforced speed limits or traffic laws before so it isn’t surprising those fatality rates should drop.

Also, the heavy-handed tactics of French police, such as the confiscation of vehicles, have made the policy very unpopular with some sections of the French public.

Likewise, Australia and New Zealand both saw serious reductions in the rate of road deaths following the implementation of speed cameras.

By contrast, the UK hasn’t seen a significant fall in the number of accidents since speed cameras were introduced, despite the country being buried in them.

Surely speed cameras will slow people down and save lives?

Speed cameras in themselves are not the solution. Like any tool, they have to be used properly.

Mounting speed cameras in urban areas, outside schools and hospitals, for example, would be generally a good thing, but the first two ever installed in Ireland were mounted on the M50, which was at that time a 70mph road.

It could also be argued that any speed becomes excessive when mixed with poor driving skills or unfavourable conditions; things a speed camera can’t pick up on.

So, the whole thing is a swindle?

Well let’s take a balanced view.

According to the World Health Organisation, the road accident is rapidly becoming the way for people in the developing world to die.

Many of these accidents are attributed to:
- The conditions
- Drivers without proper driver training
- Driving old and indifferently engineered vehicles on poor roads (much like Ireland in the 1970s when nearly twice as many people were killed annually).

1.2 million people die every year in road accidents globally and 35 million people are injured.

In Western Europe, with our sophisticated cars and our sophisticated road network, 50,000 people are killed on the roads every year.

Regardless of whether you approve or otherwise of speed cameras, most experts and governments agree that something needs to be done and that speed-monitoring devices have a role to play.

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