Came across an accident today

DonJose

I was in a hurry driving to the airport tonight and I came across a single car accident on the N4 in the rain. Seems the fella lost control of his car and hit the central barrier on the Dublin road just before the Spa hotel exit. I put on my hazards as the crashed car was horizontal across the two lanes. The driver had the sense to reverse quickly onto the hard shoulder/embankment. I pulled up on the hard shoulder and got out and went to see if the driver was OK, he was a little shaken but fine. I asked if he needed a ambulance but he told me was OK. I aksed again if he wanted me to anybody but he said he was fine. Fair enough, I didn't see the accident or what happened but it was a single car crash.

As I drove off I said feck, I might as well phone for an ambulance just in case. I phoned 999 and reported the crash to the guards, told them where it was and so on. So the guard asks for my name, which I gave, then my phone number, I gave him my mobile. He said there was one digit too many, I gave it again telling him its my mobile number which has 10 digits like any normal mobile 087 followed by 7 digits, again he says theres one digit too many, I repeated the number again and he starts getting pissed off telling me theres one digit too many and then has the cheek to say "I hope you're not wasting my time." I was thinking WTF, I repeated my mobile number again and he says the same thing again about wasting his time. After being accused of wasting this guards time twice, I somehow got disconnected on my side!!!

Fizman

Sounds like you came across a 'Chief Wiggum type character' there tbh!

Chief Wiggum
"No, you got the wrong number. This is 912."

kmart6

It was raining...he dodn't wanna go outside:p

Steve

At least you tried - fair play to you, a lot of people would 'pretend' they saw nothing and drive on.

I had a similar experience years ago, a car was on fire near where my GF was living (scumbag joyriders) so I called 999 and they were just short of asking me my underpants size and credit card deails. In the end I stuck the phone out the window as the fuel tank went up and said to them "it's your problem" now and hung up - turns out they were looking for someone to bill the fire brigade costs to.

Rowley Birkin QC

Anychance you could find a bill landing on your doorstep or is that just the fire brigade?

Fair play to you for stopping though.

Zube

A bit OT, but are you lads saying that if some skangers set fire to a stolen car on my road and I call the fire brigade to put it out, they are going to bill me for it?

mcmc

Zube wrote: »

A bit OT, but are you lads saying that if some skangers set fire to a stolen car on my road and I call the fire brigade to put it out, they are going to bill me for it?

No, they are saying that if you ring the fire brigade for a hoax call, they will bill you for wasting their time.

Zube

mcmc wrote: »

No, they are saying that if you ring the fire brigade for a hoax call, they will bill you for wasting their time.

Ah, OK then.

setanta

Zube wrote: »

A bit OT, but are you lads saying that if some skangers set fire to a stolen car on my road and I call the fire brigade to put it out, they are going to bill me for it?

Most Local councils levy a charge when the fire brigade is called out.

There was a thread on this on AAM a few weeks ago

DonJose

bigkev49 wrote: »

Anychance you could find a bill landing on your doorstep or is that just the fire brigade?

Fair play to you for stopping though.

Thats all I need now is to get charged €600 for making a 999 call :eek: No wonder nobody else stopped and there must have been 30-40 cars that drove past, and over crash debris, in the 2 minutes I was making sure the driver was OK. The attitude of the guard really pissed me off, I don't know how their system is setup but any normal mobile has 10 digits 087 1234567

Riskymove

DonJose wrote: »

Thats all I need now is to get charged €600 for making a 999 call :eek: No wonder nobody else stopped and there must have been 30-40 cars that drove past, and over crash debris, in the 2 minutes I was making sure the driver was OK. The attitude of the guard really pissed me off, I don't know how their system is setup but any normal mobile has 10 digits 087 1234567

Some Local authorities charge call-out fee for fire service but its the owner who is responsible for cost in relation to a fire not a passerby who calls

In any event I dont think Dublin City Council charge a fee

I have never heard of a call out fee for ambulance or Gardai

DonJose

Riskymove wrote: »

Some Local authorities charge call-out fee for fire service but its the owner who is responsible for cost in relation to a fire not a passerby who calls

In any event I dont think Dublin City Council charge a fee

I have never heard of a call out fee for ambulance or Gardai

I never heard of a call out fee either, I was suprised to see it mentioned above by some posters.

L1011

Sure, how would the Guards track you, if you were giving them a wrong number all the time

I've never been contacted after phoning in fires in public places before, let alone asked to pay the callout fee - and I'm Kildare where there definitely is one!

setanta

DonJose wrote: »

I never heard of a call out fee either, I was suprised to see it mentioned above by some posters.

Just so you don't think I was making it up:


Meath County Council: "Fire Brigade Charges

Fire Brigade Charges are payable for the attendance of the Fire Brigade at fires in domestic, commercial and industrial premises, and also for other special services i.e. attendance at road traffic accidents, flooding etc."

WindSock

Do they not have caller ID? Surely he would have known you werent joking. Eejit. I don't know why he was asking your details. I phoned them up to report a blown over traffic cone on the motorway and they said they will get onto it without asking for my details. Maybe an accident is different though.

scargill

i've given up reporting things to the guards. these are the only 3 times I have had dealings with the guards:

1. There was a car with smoke billowing out from under the bonnet at the back of a pub in Naas. I had no mobile phone with me (it was years ago) but I was heading to Kilcullen and was passing the Garda Station. I pulled in to tell them that there was a car looking like it was going to burst into flames.
The guard looked at me and sighed (he was reading the paper), got onto the radio to one of his mates and said "CJ, you better go up Haydens - ANOTHER person has contacted us about that smoking car"

2. I was out one night on my way home from the pub. Some headcase with a hoodie over his head/face was walking up the street ahead of me. He was kicking the wing mirror off every car that he passed. I was on my own so wasn't going to tackle him. The guard station was 100 metres away so I popped in and told them what was going on. The reaction was more or less "Whooah whoah there now son, come in here and give us more of your details and give us a statement about what you saw". I said just send one of your squad cars down the street - you'll catch the guy in the act. They didn't want to know. I left.

3. On my way down the Naas road (near Blackhall) one night at 60 mph I came across an accident where several cars had crashed into several cows.
I nearly crashed into someone myself (thank jebus for ABS). I rang the guards to report it. I'm pretty sure his name was TJ. He said "be careful out there we have reports of cows loose on the dual carriageway". I fcking know numbnuts - I nearly hit the bastards !!! :mad:
He was like an automated answering machine - there was inside-out cows strewn across the road. mangled cars, etc. "be careful out there". Thanks TJ.

Riskymove

setanta wrote: »

Just so you don't think I was making it up:


Meath County Council: "Fire Brigade Charges

Fire Brigade Charges are payable for the attendance of the Fire Brigade at fires in domestic, commercial and industrial premises, and also for other special services i.e. attendance at road traffic accidents, flooding etc."

I said I never heard of a call out fee for ambulance or Gardai

CJhaughey

I only once ever tried reporting an accident to the Gardai.
On a very windy road a tractor pulling a 15t excavator had tried to take a turn off at speed and the excavator had slipped off (no chains!) the side of the trailer, this meant the road was blocked and the traffic was backing up around bends etc etc.
I called the station and tried to report the accident and that there should be some kind of warning etc but got the the usual: whats your name, phone number, address etc etc.
I just can't be bothered now.

Alun

I guess the name, address, phone number thing has to do with a requirement on them to keep records of all calls, but it is a bit annoying nonetheless when all you're doing is just ringing up to give them a heads up on a dangerous situation.

I've had similar experiences to the previous posters where I've rung the local Garda station here in Bray to alert them to a couple of potentially very dangerous traffic situations and after exchanging the usual name, address, phone number pleasantries I got the distinct impression that they just couldn't give a damn. Not even a 'thank you for reporting that'. I don't bother any more either.

Steve

I would assume they are taking your detatils in case they need to call you as a witness if whatever accident / incident you are reporting ends up in court.