Gardai with the road manners of a pig.

\m/_(>_<)_\m/

alfie wrote:

and as other people have pointed out they do in fact use their personal phones for work use.

ya and pigs will fly.

alfie

\m/_(>_<)_\m/ wrote:

ya and pigs will fly.

It's a FACT don't get petty because your wrong.:rolleyes:

cargrouch

\m/_(>_<)_\m/ wrote:

don't even try to say that they use their personal phones for work use...

Just asked a guard - yes, it is common.

\m/_(>_<)_\m/ wrote:

FFS we have spent a couple of million on a computer system to make their work load a lot easier and they want more money to use it

Have you seen most people try to use a computer? Embarassing. I'd be all in favour of the guards, especially older guards, getting properly trained to avoid errors!

\m/_(>_<)_\m/ wrote:

and if we improved the radios they would want more money to use them as well i suppose.

That's train drivers you're thinking of:D

\m/_(>_<)_\m/ wrote:

*lalala fingers in ears lalala*

Savman

\m/_(>_<)_\m/ wrote:

don't even try to say that they use their personal phones for work use...

I have personally seen them doing so, as have other people apparently. You're very very wrong on this...

Stark

Are they able to claim back the costs of the calls on expenses?

alfie

Stark wrote:

Are they able to claim back the costs of the calls on expenses?

As far as i know, no they are not.

unkel

Stark wrote:

Are they able to claim back the costs of the calls on expenses?

Nope. Then again they get paid fixed allowances / expenses for pretty much anything and everything

RiderOnTheStorm

lets not turn this into a 'are cops good or bad' thread, or we will be here forever.

imho if the cops are using thier personal mobiles (which i know for a fact is true!) to make work calls and they are paying for it themselves, doesnt that tell you that that they want to do their job and they want to make a difference? I think it shows that they are not all jobsworths, and are willing to take a personal cost (literally!) to provide the service that the state should be funding.

I would be very reluctant to use my pers mobile to make business calls if I cannot claim it back as expenses!

Big Nelly

RiderOnTheStorm wrote:

I would be very reluctant to use my pers mobile to make business calls if I cannot claim it back as expenses!

I needamobile for work so got a company one, have my own personal one for Personal calls so every 3 months just put bills thru. I would never use my personal mobile for business calls.

Also allows me at weekend to turn off work one so I dont have people annoying my head:D

\m/_(>_<)_\m/

RiderOnTheStorm wrote:

lets not turn this into a 'are cops good or bad' thread, or we will be here forever.

imho if the cops are using thier personal mobiles (which i know for a fact is true!) to make work calls and they are paying for it themselves, doesnt that tell you that that they want to do their job and they want to make a difference? I think it shows that they are not all jobsworths, and are willing to take a personal cost (literally!) to provide the service that the state should be funding.

I would be very reluctant to use my pers mobile to make business calls if I cannot claim it back as expenses!

lets not turn this into a cop are good or cops are bad......

and then you rant on how good they are and how they want to make a difference...
bit too obvious and not many people will fall for that one. but nice try

Fey!

\m/ (< >) \m/ - do you EVER have anything positive to say?

I know several Gardai, and whilst most are out to do their job as best they can, some are just punching a clock. Same as in every other business (I know I'll get flanged by people saying "the Gardai aren't a business"; I mean that it's the way segments of all workforces are.

Back to the OP, I've had an unmarked Garda car come down the wrong side of the road against me with no lights or sirens (I knew the car; Galway is a small town!) so that the cop in it could make it to court 30 seconds faster! Not, IMHO, proper use of a state vehicle.

Big Balls

It's gone off topic quite a lot but was there not some deal involving stations and O2? As in most garda stations have O2 masts on them?

I really doubt gardaí are paying for the calls and getting NOTHING for it? No matter how much someone loves their job or wants to do the world nothing but good, they're not going to be so stupid to run up high mobile bills just cause they are such nice people?!

Fey!

BB - I know several Gardai who use their own mobiles and get no compensation/expenses for it.

dingding

Why do we need 3 cops in one car. ?????

Most other countries have one cop. (I saw this both in the US and UK). It would be a better use of resources to have one per car, get more cars and have a better response time. If it is a diffiuclt situation where you need 3 cops just call out multiple cars. For the cost of the pay additional cars would provide a better service and better value for money.

See this the whole time on the SKY cop programmes.

alfie

Well you need 2 in a car but there just isnt squad cars to have 1 in them anyway and good luck trying to find the money for them

dingding

Each additional guard at least 50K per year (more if you factor in the pension costs) One car would do 3 guards i.e. it would work all the shifts.

Car 20K no VRT or VAT

Don't see the problem.

Big Balls

There's quite a lot of guards who do not earn 50k !!!

0lordy

Thought this thread would just go away, but it hasn't, so here's my, and hopefully others', opinion of this.

This thread doesn't belong to the motors forum. It more likely belongs to a forum entitled "Pointless Whingeing" or better still "Posts from People who have a problem with Authority"

The title of the thread is an insult to Gardaí.

This thread points to minor misdemeanours in individual gardaí's behaviour, which I agree shouldn't happen. However, why not balance the discussion by hiighlight individual Gardaí who try to quell mini-riots outside nighgclubs every weekend night, or risk injury or their lives in getting rammed by joyriders, or confront armed robbers in the line of duty.

At the end of the day, my advice to people with this negative perception of Gardaí is this: get yourself down to Templemore if you think you can do a better job. You'll have no problem getting in, because this is a job nobody wants to do; it's far easier to just whinge.

Big Balls

I don't recall saying I could do a better job.

The thread involves MOTORING ie. driving on the road.

And the authority you speak of (quite amusingly I might add) shouldn't be abused, no matter whether's it's just 3 gardaí or the whole force - if they were not guards you can be bloody sure I would've had a word over their complete pig ignorance.

Down off that horse of yours, buddy.

_Kaiser_

0lordy wrote:

Thought this thread would just go away, but it hasn't, so here's my, and hopefully others', opinion of this.

This thread doesn't belong to the motors forum. It more likely belongs to a forum entitled "Pointless Whingeing" or better still "Posts from People who have a problem with Authority"

The title of the thread is an insult to Gardaí.

This thread points to minor misdemeanours in individual gardaí's behaviour, which I agree shouldn't happen. However, why not balance the discussion by hiighlight individual Gardaí who try to quell mini-riots outside nighgclubs every weekend night, or risk injury or their lives in getting rammed by joyriders, or confront armed robbers in the line of duty.

At the end of the day, my advice to people with this negative perception of Gardaí is this: get yourself down to Templemore if you think you can do a better job. You'll have no problem getting in, because this is a job nobody wants to do; it's far easier to just whinge.

Minor misdemeanours?? OK, I'll grant you that this isn't the worst example of some Gardai abusing their authority (because the reality is that's what they're doing), but what about other recently reported incidents here, like:

- Stopping a young guy at night for no other reason than because he's driving a certain type of car - called harassment and discrimination.

- Tailgating people (at speed) in an attempt to coerce them into breaking the limit, thus earning them another easy collar - called entrapment.

- Generally aggressive driving and disregard for the rules of the road simply because they can.

I'll agree that not every cop is like this, but there is a lot of them out there, whether you choose to accept it yourself or not.

I'll repeat my call that all Garda cars (or certainly starting with Traffic Corps vehicles) should be fitted with audio/video cameras and that they should be required to produce the footage for any prosecution.

This serves to not only reduce the time and costs in court (as it's very hard to deny something when it's there on screen), but should also streamline the whole thing, thus making their jobs easier. Plus, it also serves to keep an eye on those Gardai that are abusing their position - but it's this last reason that will prevent this idea (which works very well in other countries) being implemented anytime soon.

Oh if you still doubt that the Gardai themselves need policing (by an independent body) then go back a few pages in this forum to the last thread on this topic, and have a read of the thread I linked to regarding the activities of a certain Dublin station and then come back to me.

dingding

Big Balls wrote:

There's quite a lot of guards who do not earn 50k !!!

Granted that, but if you divide the cost of running the Gardai by the number of Guards it should come to more than that, other costs include maintaining office space (garda stations), Supervision Seargents etc...

If you divide it by the cost of the number of garda on the streets at any given time, including 3 gardai per car. The figures should add up.

As per Kaiser2000's post above these cameras would help protect the innocent gardai against unfound allegations.

Also I have been stopped numerous times in NI over the years (at checkpoints) and I always found the treatment by army and police there unifrom. The training seemed to have a module on how to interact with the public. This training seems lacking in Templemore as there is no consistency in how situations are dealth with on a one to one, or even three to one basis.

I am not against authority, I think the Gardai do a great job protecting citizens but there just needs to be more consistency and procedures to protect the public and individual guards.

0lordy

Kaiser2000:
I still do not see the point of complaining about individual issues on this forum, but i certainly agree with you on your points about the necessity for an independent body to police any police force, and also equipping squad cars with cameras.

I don't see individual isdemeanors as a problem, but certainly systematic abuse of power or corruption needs to be rooted out if it exists.

Turner

Lads im afriad to say but if there was 3 gardai i a car, the thrid in the back was most probably a student.

While they are a student they ride in the back of cars, they have no powers and are strictly observers for 16 weeks.

As one poster said, if you want to whinge about what gardai do, go and spend 2 years in templemore and actually realise what their job entails.

Everybody is very quick to bad mouth the gards, unless you are in a garda car and know what call they are going to...... you dont have a clue.

unkel

0lordy wrote:

The title of the thread is an insult to Gardaí

I agree

_Kaiser_

unkel wrote:

I agree

I don't.. as to me it's clear the OP refers to SOME (not all) Gardai. Now if he'd said "all Gardai have the road manners of a pig" I'd agree with you.
Let's call a spade a spade lads. The Gardai in this case were indeed in the wrong based on the incident as reported by the OP.

unkel

Kaiser2000 wrote:

Let's call a spade a spade lads. The Gardai in this case were indeed in the wrong based on the incident as reported by the OP.

Maybe not. The OP should have progressed promptly and he should not have been responsible for stopping the cars behind him while doing his Miss Daisy act.

Whatever way one wishes to study the "incident" as reported by the OP, using names like road manners of a pig is preposterous

Perhaps the OP needs some calming down. From other posts he seems to think his diesel rep-mobile is very fast too @10.0 seconds from 0-100km/h. Slow down, boyo!

_Kaiser_

unkel wrote:

Maybe not. The OP should have progressed promptly and he should not have been responsible for stopping the cars behind him while doing his Miss Daisy act.

Whatever way one wishes to study the "incident" as reported by the OP, using names like road manners of a pig is preposterous

Perhaps the OP needs some calming down. From other posts he seems to think his diesel rep-mobile is very fast too @10.0 seconds from 0-100km/h. Slow down, boyo!

Regardless of whether or not he has boy racer tendencies, from the way he describes it the traffic wasn't progressing very far anyway thus I'd say he was right to demonstrate a bit of common courtesy by letting other cars across.
Now obviously a bit of discretion and common sense needs to be applied to this practise, but it seems wholely justified here.

If anything it's the cops behind that need to slow down a bit, or is moving another 10ft really gonna make that much of a difference. If there was more cop on and courtesy on the roads we'd all be a lot safer.

Automan

Big Balls wrote:

It's gone off topic quite a lot but was there not some deal involving stations and O2? As in most garda stations have O2 masts on them?

I really doubt gardaí are paying for the calls and getting NOTHING for it? No matter how much someone loves their job or wants to do the world nothing but good, they're not going to be so stupid to run up high mobile bills just cause they are such nice people?!

I read in a news paper about a year ago that all Gards were given a mobile phone by O2 or Vodafone as part of an agreement so the said mobile fone company could put there transmitters on the stations mast.
In the paper it said that the Gards were suppose to pay any calls that they had made and the handset + rental were free, but that none of the gards had paid for there calls and had an outstanding bill in the millions.

I do not know how true this is, but I could not see any guard paying for calls for there fone that they use for work purposes, they are a unionised group and you could bet that they would find some way to either go on strike for something like this or get there message across some other way.

\m/_(>_<)_\m/

unkel wrote:

Perhaps the OP needs some calming down. From other posts he seems to think his diesel rep-mobile is very fast too @10.0 seconds from 0-100km/h. Slow down, boyo!

typical guard attitude...

listen nnkel.... he was the one been courteous on the road, if you read the first post, he was the one stopping to leave somebody out. It was the boys in blue flashing for space behind him
it was the boys in blue who were acting like boy racers.

but your post really sums it up for me... its the guards with your " you must be guilty of something" attitude that drags the rest of them down...

well done, you have cemented the argument for me.

Big Balls

Unkel, I'm no rep and my car runs on petrol but thanks for your vaulable input, 0-60 in 10 seconds, what ARE you on about. Could you TRY to even keep your waffling in line with something to do with the thread?

What I described in the OP was the lack of simple road etiquette on the guards part, if you want to have a garda loving thread, start it elsewhere. You seem to have a problem with being courteous on the road? Perhaps your ownership of a BMW has something to do with that (seeing as we're generalising). And a big 7 series too, so you've probably never heard of an indicator either.

Fact is, there are gardaí who use phones, run red lights, use the blues when they're not needed and generally, act like tw*ts on the road.

And there are gardaí who do none of the above.