Gardai to be properly trained to take part in high speed pursuits

As some one whose mother was nearly killed by a couple of guards I'd love to see the end of guards getting their kicks from dangerous, high speed joyrides.

In my mother's case, they said they were responding to a call about a house break-in - a nonsense excuse which even if it was true did not justify the dangerous speed and lives they put at risk. What followed was a cover up, taking statements from gardai who weren't on the scene, hanging around the hospital trying to interview her when she was barely conscious, and discarding witness statements except for one man who, having a history with the Gardai decided to sing to the guards time and backed up their version of events.

The high speed pursuits are even worse. One guard i know send to think it's a medal of honour that the person he was chasing died in the pursuit.. All well and good, i love crimes that punish themselves, except what if the person fleeing crashed into an innocent person travelling in the other direction?

No amount of training courses should give gardai a free pass to recklessly endanger members of the public. I'm all for these restrictions. I'm fed up of seeing gardai joyriding.

3fullback wrote: »

What about all the lives that have been saved by Gardai arriving rapidly at an incident ?

I'm pretty sure that lad is trolling us.

tenifan wrote: »

As some one whose mother was nearly killed by a couple of guards I'd love to see the end of guards getting their kicks from dangerous, high speed joyrides.

In my mother's case, they said they were responding to a call about a house break-in - a nonsense excuse which even if it was true did not justify the dangerous speed and lives they put at risk. What followed was a cover up, taking statements from gardai who weren't on the scene, hanging around the hospital trying to interview her when she was barely conscious, and discarding witness statements except for one man who, having a history with the Gardai decided to sing to the guards time and backed up their version of events.

The high speed pursuits are even worse. One guard i know send to think it's a medal of honour that the person he was chasing died in the pursuit.. All well and good, i love crimes that punish themselves, except what if the person fleeing crashed into an innocent person travelling in the other direction?

No amount of training courses should give gardai a free pass to recklessly endanger members of the public. I'm all for these restrictions. I'm fed up of seeing gardai joyriding.

I'm sure if it was your house being broken into while your family was upstairs you would not be telling the Gardaí to stop at every light.

But for your information, Gardaí are not exempt from laws regarding dangerous or careless driving. They apply to them as they do to everyone else. So even though a Garda can go through a red light, if he were to do so in a manner that was dangerous he would be liable for prosecution.

My last post in this thread..

Zambia wrote: »

Responding to an Burglary is not a nonsense excuse, I have a wife an kids if someone is in the house and I am not there. I want the Gardai there very quickly.

Speaking to another guard, he said it sounded like an absolute bull**** excuse .. that it's unlikely they were responding to a robbery (for various reasons he gave me), but they used that excuse because it was a valid reason for speeding. :rolleyes:

This may be true but thats what we have courts for.

Don't get me started on the courts. They're as unfit for purpose

Huh so your saying a Garda who was most likely at another job or task lied on a statement and said he was a witness to collision he was not at?

Wouldn't be the first time.. but that's not what I said. I said they took statements from guards arriving on the scene.

This is not unusual she would be a very important witness.

They were covering their own back and had we known what was going on, we would have advised against speaking to them. They didn't want to investigate the case, simply to get sound bites to use against her if the case went to court.

If you know whose statements were discarded just go and get another statement from those people?

We did. But not everyone would have known to do this. Some people actually trust the guards

He submitted a signed statement that if he lied on he can be charged with, he must really love the Garda

No, he sang to their tune because he knew they could make trouble for him.

I don't know your full story and convincing random people on the internet will not help your case. If your above story is true its easily investigated by a solicitor.

And you acting as an apologist for a case you know nothing about (other than the facts I've provided you with) is doing nothing to convince people that these restrictions should not apply to gardai.

oh, and it wouldn't be "easily investigated". It would be difficult and costly to investigate.

I'm not trolling. I stumbled across this thread from the front page and didn't like the attitude of the people posting here.

I am not alone in being sick of the sight of gardai speeding through streets with zero regard for pedestrians or other motorists. I'm sure some of this is already done... but all squadcars should record all audio uttered in the car, all video, and gps coordinates to track speed.