An expanded new system of automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) cameras in Garda cars is flagging so many road traffic offences that gardaí on duty are not able to respond to all of them. Instead members of the force are mostly only targeting drivers signalled by the cameras for multiple crimes.
Garda members who spoke to The Irish Times said the sheer volume of road traffic breaches is so great they cannot respond to each one. And by targeting their responses to vehicles and drivers flagged for multiple suspected breaches they believe they are pursuing the worst offenders on the roads. Offences that can be picked up by the cameras include having no tax or insurance, a driver disqualification being linked to the vehicle, and speeding among others.
However, news that the new cameras have identified far more offending than the Garda force can cope with will come as a disappointment to road safety campaigners especially at a time when road deaths are increasing, with 79 killed to last Friday, six higher than the same time last year.
Susan Gray, who founded PARC road safety group after her husband Steve was killed in Inishowen, Co Donegal, in 2004, said it was clear more gardaí should be assigned to roads policing. The fact gardaí could not pursue all of those drivers being flagged by the ANPR cameras underlined the “sheer scale” of that offending.
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“We now only have 623 roads policing unit members, down from 736 a few years ago. It’s continually going in the wrong direction,” she said.
While 130 Garda Roads Policing Unit vehicles had been equipped with ANPR systems, PARC noted there were a total of 332 roads policing vehicles. However, many of those vehicles were too old to be compatible with the new camera system.
“If our brilliant roads policing members are expected to do their job properly, then they must have the manpower, equipment and instant access to vital information on vehicles and driving licences at their fingertips for roadside checkpoints.”
It was hoped the roll out of new technology, including the Garda’s in-car cameras that automatically read the number plates of passing vehicles, would bring about a major clampdown on roads offending.
However, gardaí feel they have no option but to overlook most of those drivers flagged for one breach and instead reserve the limited number of responses possible during a shift to those they deem the worst offenders. These responses can include following and signalling a driver to stop so gardaí can engage with them by the roadside and check if the offences flagged by the cameras have actually been committed.
According to the Garda, ANPR technology “can read number plates at a rate of six per second on vehicles travelling up to 180kmh” and also “include a speed detection capability”. Neither the Garda Representative Association (GRA) or Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors (AGSI) replied to a request for comment on the situation.
Garda Headquarters said ANPR cameras were “a tool to assist gardaí in their decision-making process”. Roads policing gardaí were “professional competent police officers who make judgments and assessments on a daily basis”. Without ANPR cameras road traffic crimes would only come to light if gardaí carried out “visual checks on windscreens discs to ascertain basic information, which may be out of date”. This would be “time consuming, ineffective and inefficient”.
The Department of Justice said Garda recruitment was “continually adding to the pool of resources” available to Garda management for “deployment to specialist units such as roads policing” and to the wider organisation. However, new technology for the Garda had resulted in more road traffic offences being detected. Since the start of the year 7,307 vehicles had been seized relating to no insurance, with 1,840 seized in the month of April alone.
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