question for gardai

poisonated

is it true or is it just a myth that you guys have quotas to fill so that if your your not filling your quota you will be more inclined to pull people over and give them tickets?
just curious no offense intended

eroo

myth, they don't have quotas

Shield

This is pub talk. Gardai do not have quotas.

Jesus1222

No, but their superiors, either officially or unofficially, do
in relation to offences whose statistics are politically
relevant.

mcguiver

Unortunately no!!:p


Introduce commission!!!, I gaurantee an end to road congestion. No more 1 headlight cars, dodgy foreign reg. bangers, etc. I guess we could take 1 in 5 cars or drivers off the road. Less traffic, less environmental impact, lower insurance costs......

Wishfull thinking!!

To stay on topic, no there are no quotas, thats why when you drive today you will notice so many people using phones while driving, children not strapped in, terrible road manners etc. I know we need resources and realistic court outcomes as well.
Unfortunately mosy of us stop decent people, running late, in bus lanes, cant afford the tax etc. and we use our discretion (rather than fine them, courts, penalty points etc,) and lecture them or give them an earfull thinking it might change their ways.... the results speak for themselves.. bad driving, road deaths etc.

FGR

I can see it now! Re: Commission

Control: "Guys the Sergeant wants you back at the station to take refreshments."

Crew: "..But we're only on our tenth checkpoint today!!!"

Esel

There are Key Performance Indicators on the Garda Síochána plan at Divisional level though. Do they not translate to pressure on members in regard to detections etc?

Fighting Irish

poisonated wrote: »

is it true or is it just a myth that you guys have quotas to fill so that if your your not filling your quota you will be more inclined to pull people over and give them tickets?
just curious no offense intended

Even if the quota thing was true they'd still need a reason to pull you over

I have huge respect for the gardai in this country, i just don't have much respect for some of the laws they have to enforce :pac:

Victor

Quota is the wrong word and gives the wrong emphasis.

Imagine:

Area A, Year 1: 2 road deaths, 100 injuries, 2,000 tickets handed out
Area B, Year 1: 2 road deaths, 100 injuries, 2,000 tickets handed out

Area A, Year 2: 4 road deaths, 300 injuries, 2,000 tickets handed out - situation has deteriorated
Area B, Year 2: 0 road deaths, 50 injuries, 500 tickets handed out - situation has improved

Coming to the end of year 2, can't you imagine the senior officers considering moving some members from one are to the other?

jt123456

Statistics never really tell the complete story.

Imagine a Garda in a one man station who makes has no arrests, summons or convictions for a 12 month period.
Does this mean he is bad at his job or good at his job?

Makes you think!!

Hooch

Fighting Irish wrote: »

Even if the quota thing was true they'd still need a reason to pull you over

I have huge respect for the gardai in this country, i just don't have much respect for some of the laws they have to enforce :pac:

To put it to bed no we dont have quotas!! We never will. Discression is the best power we have and quotas would get rid of that.

And in relation to the quote in bold we do not need a reason to stop any vehicle in use on a public road. Section 109 RTA 1961-06:D

pvt.joker

may not be "quotas", but there is certainly pressure to have certain levels of "returns of work", eg. summons etc per month, especially on probationers

Hooch

pvt.joker wrote: »

may not be "quotas", but there is certainly pressure to have certain levels of "returns of work", eg. summons etc per month, especially on probationers

There is pressure on every member to have a return of work....as there is in every job. It depends on station, service and unit as to what level of return is expected i.e. more expected of probationers who are showing that they can do the job.

But there is no quota. Everyone has to work in the job though, but i would hope that is common sense and everyone can see that!!

Fighting Irish

nice guy always wrote: »

To put it to bed no we dont have quotas!! We never will. Discression is the best power we have and quotas would get rid of that.

And in relation to the quote in bold we do not need a reason to stop any vehicle in use on a public road. Section 109 RTA 1961-06

I was sort of saying something else but yeah.....

Hooch

Fighting Irish wrote: »

I was sort of saying something else but yeah.....

Sorry only re read it there:o. I stand corrected....sorry!!!!

deadwood

This is one of my personal favourites:


Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Fishtits

I suppose a less subtle way of asking the same question would be how are members assessed with ref to performance reviews?

Hooch

Fishtits wrote: »

I suppose a less subtle way of asking the same question would be how are members assessed with ref to performance reviews?

There is no preformance review as such. Its normally work return but that is a grouping of a lot of things that include community interaction, courses, tickets, criminal intelligence, incidents, calls responded to etc etc. Its very very hard to do a preformance review on members as the job is so dynamic. This help?

silverharp

Can I throw in another slant on the question , why do speed checks have the appearance of tring to clock up hits. For instance the only place I ever see speed checks is around UCD on the dual carriage way , an extremely safe piece of road , no schools , pedestrian crossings. Yet in all my years living in the area I've never seen one on Merrion/Rock road, where there are schools , more pedestrian.
It "seems" there is no account taken of potential effect of such speeding, and can only concule that its "easy" to be seen to be doing a good days work when in effect no useful work has been done. (if road safety is the key concern)

TheNog

silverharp wrote: »

Can I throw in another slant on the question , why do speed checks have the appearance of tring to clock up hits. For instance the only place I ever see speed checks is around UCD on the dual carriage way , an extremely safe piece of road , no schools , pedestrian crossings. Yet in all my years living in the area I've never seen one on Merrion/Rock road, where there are schools , more pedestrian.
It "seems" there is no account taken of potential effect of such speeding, and can only concule that its "easy" to be seen to be doing a good days work when in effect no useful work has been done. (if road safety is the key concern)

Thats a fair enough question so I will answer it with how we select the locations of speed traps in my district. In the last 2 yrs we have had 3 fatalities. One fatal was a cyclist during a road race and nearing the finish line, cycled into the back of a park truck. Second was a man who had a heart attack while driving, crashed and subsequently died and the third was a 2 vehicle collision. The first two obviously couldnt have been prevented by any Garda preventative measures, the third could have been but I cannot go into it as it is still being investigated.

So the only way we can select speed traps is through collisions which we know through investigations were caused by driver inattention or speeding. None of these would make the newspapers and some might not even be known by people living in the area where the collisions occur. Another way to select an area is by people living in a particular area who ring the station and request we keep an eye on speeders who seem to tear past their house.

The road types selected can be excellent roads or small country roads but we can only do speed checks if some criteria are ticked as such. Criteria such as road conditions are good (ie not icy or slippy in anyway), a straight stretch of road for getting a fix on vehicles speed and for stopping that vehicle in a safe manner ie not having to run out onto the road and the driver havng to brake suddenly whcih could cause an accident.

So in all some locations may not have ever had an accident such as where people ring us about people speeding by but we do target those areas in a preventative way rather than wait for an accident. Its simply proacive policing rather than reactive policing.

Hope this clears it up

Hooch

silverharp wrote: »

Can I throw in another slant on the question , why do speed checks have the appearance of tring to clock up hits. For instance the only place I ever see speed checks is around UCD on the dual carriage way , an extremely safe piece of road , no schools , pedestrian crossings. Yet in all my years living in the area I've never seen one on Merrion/Rock road, where there are schools , more pedestrian.
It "seems" there is no account taken of potential effect of such speeding, and can only concule that its "easy" to be seen to be doing a good days work when in effect no useful work has been done. (if road safety is the key concern)

To be honest i dont know the area of the school but I presume it is not feesable to do one here, as in the drivers could not build up the speed necessary to be over the limit. I.E. we got reports of speeding vehicles outside a school couple of months ago so we placed the unmarked gatso speed van near there. Zero speeders for the three days.....but still report from teachers of speeding - perception of speed is a hard one. 50 kmph seems fast (and is) near a school but its within the limit.

Hope this help but again i dont know the area.

silverharp

nice guy always wrote: »

To be honest i dont know the area of the school but I presume it is not feesable to do one here, as in the drivers could not build up the speed necessary to be over the limit. I.E. we got reports of speeding vehicles outside a school couple of months ago so we placed the unmarked gatso speed van near there. Zero speeders for the three days.....but still report from teachers of speeding - perception of speed is a hard one. 50 kmph seems fast (and is) near a school but its within the limit.

Hope this help but again i dont know the area.

cheers, I don't know if there is a problem per say around the school areas I mentioned , I was just coming at it from the view that the potential effects of speeding around a built up area seems higher then the N11 or some such road. good to know that there is a response if people feel there is a problem in an area.

daithip

silverharp wrote: »

Can I throw in another slant on the question , why do speed checks have the appearance of tring to clock up hits. For instance the only place I ever see speed checks is around UCD on the dual carriage way , an extremely safe piece of road , no schools , pedestrian crossings. Yet in all my years living in the area I've never seen one on Merrion/Rock road, where there are schools , more pedestrian.
It "seems" there is no account taken of potential effect of such speeding, and can only concule that its "easy" to be seen to be doing a good days work when in effect no useful work has been done. (if road safety is the key concern)

What I would say in relation to this is, as already mentioned, most speed detection traps are geared towards prevention and pro active policing. Imo you're probably right in saying there's probably a higher visibility rating around this area of UCD and that's what Garda management want, higher visibility. For example why would a Garda in broad daylight on beat wear a flourescent jacket, that's it, to be seen. Remember check out the vehicles issued to traffic units, highly marked jeeps, people carriers and estates, now these aren't designed for high speed chases or covert operations, nope they're designed to be seen a mile down the road. If it was as you mentioned about hits, all these vehicles would be unmarked.