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Big Time Crime vs Small Time Crime: Speed Limits and Killing people!

Written by Joerg Steegmueller
Big Time Crime vs Small Time Crime: Speed Limits and Killing people!

I got caught breaking the law! Yes, it is hard to admit (especially for a German :-) ), but I did break the law (unintentionally) and I got caught AND paid for it. A few weeks ago, I drove home on a very quiet Sunday evening on a well built and well lit street in Dublin. Hardly any traffic, no pedestrians or cyclists and I was not distracted by mobile phone or anything else. All was well…

…until about two weeks later when a letter arrived, telling me that I was recklessly breaking the law. What a bad boy! I know! I drove 59 km/h in a 50 km/h zone. I had to pay EUR 80 and will be punished for three years due to the 3 points I also got.

Interestingly, if I had driven 120km/h in a 50km/h zone, I would have been punished in the EXACT same way. Odd!!!

Then on Tuesday, I heard about the shooting of another gang member of the two feuding Dublin criminal gangs. We might think, that it is not the worst if they terminate each other, but keep in mind that in every killing one side will win over the other and it will give that “winning” side more power, which is never a good thing when you talk about criminals. These ongoing killings are a bad bad thing on another level. As we have seen, the risk for random bystanders is significant, because these killers seem to have trouble at times knowing who they really want to get and also because they are getting more and more ruthless.

So how does my speeding tickets link to the gang war in Dublin? — It doesn’t really! I am not the type of person who complains that the police should spend their time on hunting down the big criminals and let the small criminals go. I broke the law and got punished, which is annoying but fair. But when it comes to fairness, it seems that bigger criminals get away with a lot more.

For Friday of this week a big “clampdown” on speeding has been announced. It’s easy!! Put up a few vans around the country in locations that are not really accident hotspots and then just send the tickets by post. You will get lots of money back and have a nice Press Release about the success and the catching of the criminals.

At the same time, the gangs, make millions through drugs and from their HUGE amount of properties that most likely were bought from drug money as well. Clampdown? Not much!

Is it resources? I don’t think so! It is just easier to get honest people to own up and pay up for their small crimes than to get criminals to own up to their big crimes. It not wrong to punish the small time criminals, but it is wrong to let the big time criminals get away with as much as they do.

Justice, Society, Traffic,

College Green Plans – Consultation

Written by Joerg Steegmueller
College Green Plans – Consultation

The plans for College Green have been revealed. The intention is to pedestrianise the whole College Green area from Starbucks in Dame Street to the Westin Hotel in Westmoreland Street and up to Grafton Street. Suffolk Street is also becoming a car free zone. This is a HUGE area in the middle of the city and that has some pros and some cons.

The plus sides are that for the first time, Dublin will get a major civic space in the middle of the city centre and I really hope that that will be the new site for a completely new Christmas Market for Dublin and will also give opportunity to have other markets and events in that area.

But there are downsides for pedestrians, cyclists and motorists. The downside for motorists is clear, but the new issues for pedestrians and cyclists might need a bit more of an explanation. Usually cyclists are banned from pedestrianised areas and while there are short cycling lanes reaching into the main pedestrianised area, it most likely will still mean that you have to get off your bike and push it for some distance before you are allowed to continue your trip and since this is one of the main North-South routes, that doesn’t seem to be a good options. Complete cycling paths that allow to traverse the entire pedestrianised zone should be provided.

For pedestrians such cycling paths are a problem because it de-pedestrianises the zone BUT much worse is that busses, the LUAS and possibly even Taxis (completely unacceptable!) are still allowed to drive throughout the so-called “pedestrianised” zone. Either all or nothing is my opinion and wile we can’t divert the LUAS, busses and definitely taxis should NOT be allowed to drive through in my opinion.

Can you imagine the line of hundreds of taxis that will try to drive through that area in the hope to pick up passengers? And they are prepared to stop at any point at any time, ignorant to busses and the LUAS trying to get through.

If you have different opinions or even share my opinions, you are asked to submit your view on the proposed solution.

You have until 24 May and all details are here: www.dublincity.ie/college-green

Dublin, Dublin City Council, Traffic

Clamping in Dublin has gone down! Good thing, isn’t it? Or maybe not?

Written by Joerg Steegmueller
Clamping in Dublin has gone down! Good thing, isn’t it? Or maybe not?

The newspapers reported this month that the clamping fees dropped to EUR 4.24 mio and is at a lowest level in 5 years. Since the initial idea behind clamping was to stop people from parking in the wrong place or for too long, then there should be a celebration about the drop. Instead, though, a parking fine appeals officer makes the suggestion to increase the penalty from EUR 80 to EUR 130 because it hasn’t been increased since 1998.

For any normal person, a penalty of EUR 80 hurts!! And it definitely hurts enough to comply with the law as much as possible. I would be VERY surprised if a fee of EUR 130 would increase the compliance with parking rules. Sure, EUR 130 hurts even more than EUR 80, but most of us really do not have so much money that we just happily give it to the clampers. I would say that in 95% of the cases the clamping happens because someone got delayed unintentionally or parked in a place where they read the signs wrong (clear way from 16:00 and you didn’t see that it will at some stage become a clearway).

The tiny amount of people that couldn’t be bothered complying with the rules and just accumulates parking tickets will most likely not change their behaviour either if the fees were increased.The appeals officer mentions a case where one offender was clamped 64 times in 48 months. 64×80 is the significant amount of EUR 5,120 and if that offender doesn’t care about paying EUR 5000, should we really thing that an increased fee to EUR 8,320 will make that offender suddenly pay for his parking? Not a chance.

I got clamped approximately 3 times in my life and I can say that it hurts a LOT to have to pay EUR 80. In two of the three cases I made a genuine mistake, the third case was a little more complicated. But I certainly never intended to or willingly risked to get clamped, so EUR 80 is more than enough!

The Irish Independent wrote about it here, and the Irish Times here.

Dublin, Dublin City Council, Odd, Traffic

College Green and the traffic

Written by Joerg Steegmueller
College Green and the traffic

Whoever thinks that Dublin City a) has a clue what they are doing regarding traffic measures or b) thinks they are doing a good job, really needs to wake up!

The public transport in our beloved Dublin is horrendously poor and the prices are much too high. The attempts to ban cars from the city are in principal not a bad idea, but because it all happens totally disjointed while ignoring some of Dublin’s geographical particularities and without improving the poor Public Transport, things are not looking good. The LUAS improved things a little, but plan to build two isolated lines should have appeared odd many many years ago. Now the cross-city LUAS is being added and it just points out the incapabilities of the people running the city.

Last week then, the current Dublin City “Manager” Owen Keegan, who was the Director of Traffic (!!) for many years in Dublin, said that he has no clue what to do with the buses that used the route along College Green once the LUAS tracks are installed. Dublin Bus wants to use the route again (that’s where the passengers are), Dublin City Management wants to ban all cars from College Green and if you ban cars, then I think ALL traffic (including buses and taxis) should be banned from an area. Either pedestrianise it or not!! Imagine they had allowed taxis and buses to continue driving in Grafton Street and Henry Street when they pedestrianised these streets!?

And you wonder what will happen to the buses on College Green? Who knows! If the Dublin City Manager and former Director of Traffic has no clue, things are looking bad!

www.newstalk.com/Some-bus-routes-may-be-banned-from-Dublins-College-Green-due-to-new-Luas-line

Dublin, Dublin City Council, Traffic, , ,

Pedestrianisation the wrong way! and How Dublin City rigs surveys!

Written by Joerg Steegmueller
Pedestrianisation the wrong way! and How Dublin City rigs surveys!

Dublin City asked us to help with some opinions about a Transport Study that suggests to dramatically change the City Centre traffic flow. The goal is to keep cars far away from the City Centre and to make the City more pedestrian friendly. To achieve that, parts of the Liffey Quays will be closed for traffic it the suggestions in the Study will be put in reality. In addition, big changes will happen to College Green, Westmoreland Street and D’Olier Street. I would like to say that they will pedestrianised, but that would be a lie because there are some odd things happening.

I drive a car and therefore have concerns when another one of the few Liffey crossings will be closed and the plan is to effectively close O’Connell Bridge, BUT I also cycle and I walk (and I use an Electric Unicycle…the coolest vehicle ever :-) ). So because of that, I am relatively open to positive changes. But if you read the study in detail you will see that we are not really told the full story.

Most of us think that pedestrianisation is good, but how would you feel if in peak hours Taxi drivers or buses are still allowed to drive through a pedestrianised area. Doesn’t make sense, right? The idea of pedestrianising an area is that walking people will NOT have to worry about non walking parties. That’s the reason why we don’t even allow a very slow bicycle to cycle through Grafton Street, But Dublin City doesn’t want to give you that. Noo, they say that Taxis and buses still need to drive through College Green. That doesn’t sound cool.And would it not makes sense then to at least let bicycles also use the area where buses and taxis are still allowed to endanger pedestrians?

I think it should be an ALL or nothing! I am in favour of pedestrianisation but only if that keeps all non-walking “traffic” out.

Dublin City then gave us an opportunity to submit our opinion about this study, well at least that’s what the claimed, but if you did reply then there was not a single question about the actual plans of closing parts of the quays, or only partially pedestrianising College Green instead the consultation questionnaire was rigged by asking questions that most would answer in a way Dublin City wants it.

Here are a few of the questions:

  • Do you think that reducing ‘through traffic’ will improve the amenity value of Dublin’s city centre?
  • Do you support the principle of giving commuters more transport choices when they decide to come to Dublin City Centre?
  • Are you in favour of high quality pedestrian facilities in the city centre?
  • Are you in favour of high quality cycle facilities in the city centre?

There were 10 questions all together. Not one really explained or asked about any details. There was no question that said “Do you think that closing the South Quays and the North Quays for traffic is the appropriate way to reduce traffic in the City Centre?” Instead only wishy washy questions like the four listed above were asked. Would anybody say NO to them? I doubt it.

Dublin City you rigged the questionnaire to get the answers that you wanted to get! Very disappointing!

Dublin, Traffic,
 
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