Question Re Garda ' Traffic Corps '

Davidth88

People,

We see plenty of Garda cars nowadays with ' Traffic Corp ' written on them , now it seems obvious to me these cars are not on traffic duty a lot of the time ( for example yesterday I saw one escorting a prison van ), and you see them attending things like shoplifters etc.

Are these stickers on the cars just ' window dressing ' or are the gards inside specially trained ( ie trained in persuit driving) , do they have the ton of equipment in the boot that you would see in the back of traffic cars in the UK ?

I am just curious , I have no connection to any police force, nor ( I hope ) do I have any outstanding traffic fines etc .

Beruthiel

I'd like to add a question to that.
They have a free phone number on the side of the car, presumably to call if you see dangerous driving. If you use that number to report a muppet on the road (of which I have seen many) is anything actually done about it?

drunkmonkey

I overtook one the other day on the motorway, everyone else was afraid to....he was doing between 110km and 130km, I was doing a constant 126km with the cruise control on.....he didn't follow me but the rest of the chicken ****s hiding behind him did....

I think it all depends on what there doing, if there parked with a gun they can catch you, they could also be out on other missions and not be 2 bothered what your up to....it all depends....

drunkmonkey

Beruthiel wrote: »

I'd like to add a question to that.
They have a free phone number on the side of the car, presumably to call if you see dangerous driving. If you use that number to report a muppet on the road (of which I have seen many) is anything actually done about it?

I think you get a friendly word in the ear from a local copper...

Fyr.Fytr

Right here it goes
1) Traffic corps do most vehicle escorts be it abnormal loads, dangerous goods or prisoners are they're trained for it

2) They attend "normal" crimes too as they can be in the area and local units tend to be up to their eye balls so they give a dig out

3) Yes the boot id crammed with stuff, from cones to collapsible signs to speed guns and so on so forth

4) i presume the free phone number you are on about is the garda confidential number that all garda cars have for people to give tips to the gardai with tying up 999 or giving their name, its along the same lines as crime stoppers. There is also a low cost traffic watch number.

All reports of d driving are taken seriously but it all depends on whether you are willing to give a statements and testify in court, there is a whole topic on this, will search and post the link here


EDIT: To know how Gardai deal with dangerous driving calls see this link http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055269876

Honey-ec

I've tried to use that Traffic Watch number three times and it's a joke, I just don't bother anymore.

It's answered by an IVR that asks you "Please state the county you are reporting an incident in" (or something along those lines). When you answer, it then says "Did you say 'Kildare'? Please state yes or no". If it's right and you answer yes, it then says "Please hold while we connect you to the relevant area". This whole process takes at least 5 minutes, and on every single attempt I've made, I was then told "The Garda division you require is currently busy. Please try again later".

Brilliant. Imagine trying again later and if you actually managed to get through, reporting an incident you saw 6 hours ago...

drunkmonkey

Honey-ec wrote: »

I've tried to use that Traffic Watch number three times ...

What were you reporting?, I only ever tried it once as I felt the driver in front was a serious danger, he was waving all over the road, I really thought he was silly drunk behind the wheel, he was so bad I could not overtake him it was that bad.....he eventually pulled over and a girls head popped up, glad I didn't dob him in....

TheNog

Davidth88 wrote: »

People,

We see plenty of Garda cars nowadays with ' Traffic Corp ' written on them , now it seems obvious to me these cars are not on traffic duty a lot of the time ( for example yesterday I saw one escorting a prison van ), and you see them attending things like shoplifters etc.

Are these stickers on the cars just ' window dressing ' or are the gards inside specially trained ( ie trained in persuit driving) , do they have the ton of equipment in the boot that you would see in the back of traffic cars in the UK ?

I am just curious , I have no connection to any police force, nor ( I hope ) do I have any outstanding traffic fines etc .

Alot of the time traffic cars are on traffic duty. There are occasions where the regular unit may be very busy and need a helping hand though in my district it this has never happened before as the traffic corp are based outside of our district.

Beruthiel wrote: »

I'd like to add a question to that.
They have a free phone number on the side of the car, presumably to call if you see dangerous driving. If you use that number to report a muppet on the road (of which I have seen many) is anything actually done about it?

There is something done about it but only if the person reporting is willing to make a statement and possibly go to court and give evidence.

In all cases an incident is created and is monitored by local sergeants carefully. They continuosly ask us for updates and if the reportee does not want to go further with it then we must get a statement from them withdrawing the complaint.

If a person is unwilling to do that then there is nothing we can do. There was a stage where I used to caution the offending driver when a statement was not forthcoming but tbh I have given up on that. It is not simply cos I do not care its because I do not have the time to be talking to a driver who usually denies driving dangerously.


Another thing, when I am working in the station and receive a call on the normal phone about dangerous driving I always ask the reportee to give me registration numbers of other drivers who would have witnessed the incident. If the reportee is willing to make a statement I then contact the other drivers to see if they wish to make a statement too. This removes the defence of "his word against mine". I have had many successful prosecutions because of this.

Also when ringing a station or Trafficwatch please keep to the facts and do not tell a long winded story as time can be of the essence. I don't know how many people ring the station to tell me of an incident and tell me of other incidents that happened ages ago or that they are just out of hospital or just bought a new car or whatever. I understand people have just had a scare (if in a near collision) and tend to babble on but a few people have gotten upset with me when I have told them to just give me the facts such as "where are you?, what car are they driving? what is the registration number?. If our car is in the area then I can get them to intercept asap rather than listen to non essential information.

TheNog

Honey-ec wrote: »

I've tried to use that Traffic Watch number three times and it's a joke, I just don't bother anymore.

It's answered by an IVR that asks you "Please state the county you are reporting an incident in" (or something along those lines). When you answer, it then says "Did you say 'Kildare'? Please state yes or no". If it's right and you answer yes, it then says "Please hold while we connect you to the relevant area". This whole process takes at least 5 minutes, and on every single attempt I've made, I was then told "The Garda division you require is currently busy. Please try again later".

Brilliant. Imagine trying again later and if you actually managed to get through, reporting an incident you saw 6 hours ago...

+1 I remember that happening to me also. When traffic watch was started up you put in touch with a local divisional hq which didnt work out as they were also answering local call and 999 calls too. Believe the phone rarely stops ringing at times and this is probably why you didnt get through.

Nowadays your call is put through to a dedicated call centre in Castlebar, Mayo where the incident is recorded on PULSE and then forwarded to the relevant station usually a district hq. The call centre still ring us but they also send a fax too so if we dont get their call we do get their fax.

deadwood

TheNog wrote: »

I don't know how many people ring the station to tell me of an incident and tell me of other incidents that happened ages ago or that they are just out of hospital or just bought a new car or whatever.

:pac: So true.
"...and normally I wouldn't mind, only I just bought the car..."

Davidth88

Ok somefollow up questions , and thanks to everyone so far.

How comes I just don't see patrols on the N roads. Now what I mean by this I travel quite a bit on the N/M7/N21, I would expect to come across patrol cars pulling people over. I see a lot of crazy overtaking/ slow cars being driven badly/ tractors on the motorways etc . Ill be honest recently I have not seen a car for months, however in the urban areas I often come across the ' Traffic Corp ' cars

Is there a always a car(s) allocated to a section of N road and I have just been lucky ( ) or unlucky enough never to see them ?

Also , come bank holiday week-ends we no-doubt will get the usual ' traffic blitz' headlines on the newspapers , which seems to morph into some ' checkpoints ' on main road, how effective are these checkpoints as compared to say a car patrolling a stretch of road ( esp a plain clothes car )

Do the Traffic Corp have any high powered cars for fast roads ?
I am sure you get this question all the time, I am not coming from an ' bashing ' angle here again, I fully understand resource issues ( we all have these ), also I don't expect to be driving this weekend so I am not looking to find out because of that either

Sorry for the raft of questions , but coming from Britain I see a completly different type of road policing here compared to the UK.

source

Davidth88 wrote: »

Ok somefollow up questions , and thanks to everyone so far.

How comes I just don't see patrols on the N roads. Now what I mean by this I travel quite a bit on the N/M7/N21, I would expect to come across patrol cars pulling people over. I see a lot of crazy overtaking/ slow cars being driven badly/ tractors on the motorways etc . Ill be honest recently I have not seen a car for months, however in the urban areas I often come across the ' Traffic Corp ' cars

Is there a always a car(s) allocated to a section of N road and I have just been lucky ( ) or unlucky enough never to see them ?

Also , come bank holiday week-ends we no-doubt will get the usual ' traffic blitz' headlines on the newspapers , which seems to morph into some ' checkpoints ' on main road, how effective are these checkpoints as compared to say a car patrolling a stretch of road ( esp a plain clothes car )

Do the Traffic Corp have any high powered cars for fast roads ?
I am sure you get this question all the time, I am not coming from an ' bashing ' angle here again, I fully understand resource issues ( we all have these ), also I don't expect to be driving this weekend so I am not looking to find out because of that either

Sorry for the raft of questions , but coming from Britain I see a completly different type of road policing here compared to the UK.

The problem with the N/M roads is that they travel through so many districts that the road becomes only a small part of the district traffic corps responsibility,ie they may only be responsible for a few miles of the road.

In relation to the high powered cars, there are 3L mondeo's, subaru forresters, BMW's etc etc, most of these are unmarked so even if they are out there you're probably not likely to see them.

msg11

Davidth88 wrote: »

Also , come bank holiday week-ends we no-doubt will get the usual ' traffic blitz' headlines on the newspapers , which seems to morph into some ' checkpoints ' on main road, how effective are these checkpoints as compared to say a car patrolling a stretch of road ( esp a plain clothes car )

no-doubt, and there will be some below standert check-points. East wall road yesterday night, no joke literally jumped out and started waving a torch, caught my attention, as it activated the ABS I got such a fright. I was pulled in for putting the foot down . Anyone who uses this road knows its condition, which is poor, very poor & terrible bad lighting.

The reason for the noise was that I was pulling away from lights and left the gear change a little late. And if I was putting the foot down, I have no doubt that the antics displayed by these garda would have ended up with them been serious injured or killed. Garda or not, you do not just jump out in front of fast moving objects.

Do the Traffic Corp have any high powered cars for fast roads ?
I am sure you get this question all the time, I am not coming from an ' bashing ' angle here again, I fully understand resource issues ( we all have these ), also I don't expect to be driving this weekend so I am not looking to find out because of that either

They have one for the M1, Mitsubshi Lancer Evolution. And just a hand full of preformance cars.

Sorry for the raft of questions , but coming from Britain I see a completly different type of road policing here compared to the UK.

Again true, but they have a bigger government, more money.

yayamark

msg11 wrote: »

Again true, but they have a bigger government, more money.

There is a Mitsubushi Lancer Evo in the Guards :eek: thats news to me.

metman

Davidth88 wrote: »

Sorry for the raft of questions , but coming from Britain I see a completly different type of road policing here compared to the UK.

David in the UK we're lucky in so far as we have local forces, not one national force, so budgets vary depending on populace, priorities and volume of crime.

As regards roads policing units, whereabouts are you in the UK? If you live in a metropolitan area then I'm sure your local force will no doubt have a considerable and well equipped roads policing unit. However if you live in a small force area, or even a very rural part of the UK then the funds allotted to your local force may not filter down to your RPU.

The Garda are a national force and roads policing is an area into which funds are being invested. However this has to be balanced with other policing priorities nationally. As another poster has stated the UK has a populace of over 60 million people. Eire has 4 million +. Its not difficult math to do. The Garda Traffic Corps do an excellent job with finite resources, all centrally funded. Unlike the UK.

msg11

yayamark wrote: »

There is a Mitsubushi Lancer Evo in the Guards :eek: thats news to me.

Just for the M1. Think there are some Imprezza's in the SW ? :pac:

Davidth88

Hi,

metman

No I live in Ireland , I come from/ used to live in the UK ( in the Met area )

What I saw/see there esp on the motorways are loads of patrols, now don't get me wrong the UK is far from a utopia with the hundreds of speed camaras that are deployed by the local authorities as a money making thing.

What I see here is a dependance on the static ' check ' , and the ' hair dryer ', usually deployed at obvious speed-traps ( for example coming into/leaving low speed limits on inter-urban routes ). While this has it's place I see so much crazy driving on the ' open roads ' that honestly sometimes it scares me.

After seeing the response here I will start using the ' hotline ' to report cars ( usually ) driving stupidly.

I again thank all people for their responses,

foinse, your one makes the most sense

The problem with the N/M roads is that they travel through so many districts that the road becomes only a small part of the district traffic corps responsibility,ie they may only be responsible for a few miles of the road.

Perhaps the ' Traffic Corp ' should have been made ' universal ' in some way , as you say the N/M roads go through loads of districts, this possibly explains why I tend to see static ' road checks' , which I think by their very nature don't catch idiot drivers because they are stationary ( I know some of these drivers may not have tax etc ). I thought this might have been the meanng of a ' dedicated traffic corp ' that we were promised ( note the word dedicated ).

Guys/girls of the Garda , don't take this as bashing , I think by and large you do a great job under very difficult circumstances , not one I would like to do for sure, lets hope the only time I ever have to see you is out on the roads.

Elgarman

In actual fact, they've simply put an "R" too many on the signs on their cars, because the poor ignorant idiots just can't spell....

Should be: GARDA TRAFFIC COPS

deadwood

Elgarman wrote: »

In actual fact, they've simply put an "R" too many on the signs on their cars, because the poor ignorant idiots just can't spell....

Should be: GARDA TRAFFIC COPS

Wrong.
They're missing an "e".

Steve

deadwood wrote: »

Wrong.
They're missing an "e".

:eek:

They'll have to trade in a few squad cars for hearses if that's the case...:D