Readers like you keep news free for everyone.
More than 5,000 readers have already pitched in to keep free access to The Journal.
For the price of one cup of coffee each week you can help keep paywalls away.
amandabhslater via Flickr
# Speed Cameras
Garda website crashes under demand for speed camera map
Swarms of visitors crash the Garda website as a map of new mobile speed cameras goes live.
UPDATED AT 12.50am, November 15, 2010 The Garda website crashed again on Sunday night/Monday morning under the number of hits on its speed camera location list. Luckily, TheJournal.ie brings you the locations covered by the new mobile speed cameras here. (Thanks to @ManAboutCouch and @CiaranMaher for their help)
THE WEBSITE of the Garda Siochána was knocked out of service for a considerable period of time earlier today, as the site struggled to cope with the volume of users trying to access a map of new mobile speed cameras.
The new network of mobile speed cameras – being operated by a private company, and present in over 600 locations around the country – is being launched on Monday, but ahead of that launch – and to ward off suggestions that the cameras were being placed to “shoot fish in a barrel”, as the Irish Independent puts it – the map was posted live earlier today.
The sheer volume of visitors to www.garda.ie, where the map was hosted, however, appeared to knock the site out of action for several hours over the course of the day.
The map – an embedded Google Map, showing the passages of road being covered by the new privately-operated cameras – was not made visible for users not accessing it through the Garda site, meaning the map remained unavailable for large parts of the day.
The Irish Times reports that the maps will not affect the force’s current speed enforcement operations, with the Irish Independent explaining that the operating company is to be paid on a flat rate basis, and not based on the number of speeding offences it logs.
The cameras will be fitted to vans which will move up and down the designated areas every few hours, in order to stop drivers being aware in advance of their exact location.
Similar schemes have reduced the number of road deaths in France by 40%, and Sweden by 30%.
