Garda should issue receipts for document inspection

Saruman

I keep reading more and more threads where people have been asked to bring documentation be it proof of tax, insurance etc to a nominated station convenient to the citizen. That is done within the time frame and should be the end of it but then it turns out that the Garda who inspected the documentation did not log the visit or made some clerical error.
The original Garda then follows up, finds the offender failed to present the documentation and things escalate to fixed penalty or summons.

I think it should be a matter of procedure that any such visit, and indeed probably a number of other types of visit to a station should involve a stamped receipt acknowledging your visit, its purpose and that the original Gardas request has been done so that in the case of clerical mishaps by someone along the chain, the citizen is covered as they have proof.

It has happened to me where I was to produce my tax cert as the disk had not arrived yet. I did so, thought nothing of it until I got a fixed penalty and then had to go through the hassle of writing to the superintendent of the station where the Garda who requested it worked. I got it sorted but I should not have had to go through the hassle and from reading other peoples experiences where court cases have come about which means time off work, solicitors fees etc I just feel that the simple act of issuing a receipt is warranted.

Locust

I would 'half' agree with you that some kind of receipt should be issued if you've produced your documents - fair and square.
That said, then as you mentioned its not really up to the fella you produced it to, its not over there:- its up to the original member to follow up and investigate, make a few phone calls as to whether your insurance, doe or whatever is valid...

I could also see a receipt system being open to wide scale abuse, getting a stamp or a receipt for visiting the station? I dunno about that... Plenty of chancers and fraudsters out there... After all the Gardai do primarily have to deal with criminals. I think if your stuff is in order and you know you've produced it, you have nothing to worry about.

ILA

There should definately be a receipt system. In terms of communication with the public, the Gardai are the most frustrating State agency to deal with.

Letters (even Registered Post ones) get "lost" and phone calls go unasnwered, but negative and positive in content. There seems to be no efficiency whatsoever in dealing with queries.

petergfiffin

Locust wrote: »

I could also see a receipt system being open to wide scale abuse, getting a stamp or a receipt for visiting the station? I dunno about that... Plenty of chancers and fraudsters out there... After all the Gardai do primarily have to deal with criminals.

Surely all that would be required is just the stamp of the station along with the number and signature of the Guard who received it, at least that would be some starting point. I would have thought though the all seeing Pulse system would be able to log the receipt of documents and issue a receipt? (then again I know absolutely nothing about Pulse)

Locust wrote: »

I think if your stuff is in order and you know you've produced it, you have nothing to worry about.

Apart from getting summonsed to court for failure to produce and then having to make endless calls to get it all sorted out which, from personal experience, is a little annoying to put it very very mildly!!!

Corcioch

Locust wrote: »

I would 'half' agree with you that some kind of receipt should be issued if you've produced your documents - fair and square.
That said, then as you mentioned its not really up to the fella you produced it to, its not over there:- its up to the original member to follow up and investigate, make a few phone calls as to whether your insurance, doe or whatever is valid...

I could also see a receipt system being open to wide scale abuse, getting a stamp or a receipt for visiting the station? I dunno about that... Plenty of chancers and fraudsters out there... After all the Gardai do primarily have to deal with criminals. I think if your stuff is in order and you know you've produced it, you have nothing to worry about.

Its not up to the member who made a demand to investigate the failure to produce the documents.

Its an automated process, was automated a few years ago as a method of increasing productivity, getting gardai out from behind desks more.

The details of documents produced in a station are recorded on the computer and if if none are recorded or if the dates dont match summonses are automatically generated by the computer and forwarded electronically to the court services, and from there to the Garda's station where they will be sent to another Garda for service on the accused person . .or sent by registered post for service by the station clerks.

So it has very very little to do with the Garda who made the demand until the day of court.

Gardai cant go about ringing insurance companies either when somoene fails to produce as half of them will simply quote the data protection act to you and tell you nothing . . .

So the policy holder has to be summonsed to court to prove that they were insured.

There are far more people out there who forget to produce anything, or have nothing to produce than there are getting inconvenienced by errors on the part of AGS ( which do happen and need to be done away with )

1922

i always print a receipt for production...

too often i've heard of people who produced and still ended up in court

Turner

I dont see why people dont carry their insurance certs in the car.. I do.

To be honest certificates mean feck all anyway..

Its way too easy for people to sign up for the year, get their certs and cancel their direct debits.

Insurance companies should be prosecuted for not getting their certs and discs back from these people.

Corcioch

Chief--- wrote: »

I dont see why people dont carry their insurance certs in the car.. I do.

To be honest certificates mean feck all anyway..

Its way too easy for people to sign up for the year, get their certs and cancel their direct debits.

Insurance companies should be prosecuted for not getting their certs and discs back from these people.

I believe there is an offence for peeps not returning them/ continuing to use them

And yip, loads of people are at that . . .but the ANPR can catch them.

one2one

Always have my certs with me, but when I never used to carry them, was asked to produce, I did, was issued with a receipt stating when and where I produced them. Thought that was the norm.

Locust

Bit of a rabbit hole but sure,

Corcioch wrote: »

Its not up to the member who made a demand to investigate the failure to produce the documents.

Not for their failure to produce, the computer simply tells that - but to investigate the alleged offence?? Of course it is.

Corcioch wrote: »

The details of documents produced in a station are recorded on the computer and if if none are recorded or if the dates dont match summonses are automatically generated by the computer and forwarded electronically to the court services.

They arent generated automatically, there is discretion of course. The member 'demanding' must check the system and decide to apply for the relevant summons themselves, manually.
This can can take a bit of investigation. Especially if you are trying to convict someone for no insurance, tax or whatever you'd have to make sure you've done your homework rather than look foolish in court/waste peoples time.

Its all to easy to take out a policy that says your covered for the year and cancel it and still have the piece of paper, stand up in court with a 'receipt' saying you've produced. It may take a phonecall to investigate, can definitely save wasting the guards and peoples time.

Corcioch wrote: »

Gardai cant go about ringing insurance companies either when somoene fails to produce as half of them will simply quote the data protection act to you and tell you nothing . . .

There is such thing as a Garda enquiry/way of going about it, its done day in day out.

I'd say for people who have produced documents fair & square yeah give them something to show what they have produced and date etc...

Zambia

one2one wrote: »

Always have my certs with me, but when I never used to carry them, was asked to produce, I did, was issued with a receipt stating when and where I produced them. Thought that was the norm.

Hang on

There is a insurance cert on the front of your car and you should always have your licence on you.

Lets just do away with the production of both at a garda station in 10 days. If you have no licence on you or insurance on your car you are booked.

Plus as well as a cert for the car insurance companies should issue a small credit card sized cert stating your personnal insurance detials. It woukd be a requirement for you to keep this as well as your licence on you while driving.

Surely the whole drive should be to get Garda out of the Stations and on to the streets. Not give them more admin work at the station.

Hooch

Locust wrote: »

Not for their failure to produce, the computer simply tells that - but to investigate the alleged offence?? Of course it is.

He is investigating the offence, nothing on computer means a summons. The onus is then on the suspect to prove (s)he was insured.

Locust wrote: »

They arent generated automatically, there is discretion of course. The member 'demanding' must check the system and decide to apply for the relevant summons themselves, manually.
This can can take a bit of investigation. Especially if you are trying to convict someone for no insurance, tax or whatever you'd have to make sure you've done your homework rather than look foolish in court/waste peoples time.

Wrong. If an FCPS is issued the issuing member can tick the produce box and station for several documents. If they are not produced the FCPS office have the summons issued for the member.

You homework is simple, is it on the computer. No = Summons. Yes and correct and in the time allow = no summons. No Garda looks foolish in court and does not waste peoples time. They put themselves in that position by not carrying their licence etc wit them or failing to produce them.

Locust wrote: »

Its all to easy to take out a policy that says your covered for the year and cancel it and still have the piece of paper, stand up in court with a 'receipt' saying you've produced. It may take a phonecall to investigate, can definitely save wasting the guards and peoples time.

This is done all the time, however how can we check if we dont have a policy number and company details???

Locust wrote: »

There is such thing as a Garda enquiry/way of going about it, its done day in day out.

Its done day in day out however some insurance companies only do so by written request and others take up to 30mins to give you the information. While we have a RIGHT to the information and Data protection doesnt come into it.....they do drag their asses.

Locust

Yeah, thats fair enough - the onus is on the suspect.
But as per someone taking out a policy and then canceling - if that policy number and details are put on the computer, the person at the station assumes it to be genuine - they cannot check every policy.

How when we go and check how are we to know its valid or not? For anyone i'm in doubt over at the roadside i'd certainly be making phone calls and checking up to suss out their policy - same for the whole 'open policy may drive any other vehicle i was driving my girlfriends car thing'

Also - would you's (or can you?) do out a blank FCPS (that won't be issued obviously) but purely for summon non-production? Or do you have to have an offence?

I've never ticked those boxes and had them generated for me automatically. Maybe its a control issue i have? Perhaps i should be doing it if it eases the workload!

Back on the receipts thing - i noticed cops in the UK issue receipts when they stop/search people?

Corcioch

Locust wrote: »

Bit of a rabbit hole but sure,


Not for their failure to produce, the computer simply tells that - but to investigate the alleged offence?? Of course it is.



They arent generated automatically, there is discretion of course. The member 'demanding' must check the system and decide to apply for the relevant summons themselves, manually.
This can can take a bit of investigation. Especially if you are trying to convict someone for no insurance, tax or whatever you'd have to make sure you've done your homework rather than look foolish in court/waste peoples time.

Its all to easy to take out a policy that says your covered for the year and cancel it and still have the piece of paper, stand up in court with a 'receipt' saying you've produced. It may take a phonecall to investigate, can definitely save wasting the guards and peoples time.


There is such thing as a Garda enquiry/way of going about it, its done day in day out.

I'd say for people who have produced documents fair & square yeah give them something to show what they have produced and date etc...

All my summonses ARE automatically generated . . .by computer.

I dont check any system . . . the computer checks. The days of ct34's and remembering to check after 10 days passed years ago.

Simply ticks two boxes on the FCPS handheld and the computer does all the work . . .I have nothing else to do with a case until the day of court.

And again ill refer to the phone call . .some insurance companies will deal with Gardai as they have this clause written into their policies . . .others will simply quote the Data Protection Act to you and will not give you any information no matter who you are unless the policy holder comes on the phone to authorise it. I have experience of this situation . . . countless times.

So you'd prob have to write to them . . .Im not going writing to the insurance companies of every car I stop during a day. I'd be behind a desk half the day.

Locust

None of ours are generated automatically unless of course its an FCPS that someone fails to pay. Dont get me wrong i'm not based out in Achill Island or anything, I'm based in a busy Dublin station and we and pretty much everyone I know would sit down on our weeks of nights/or on files and go back through the notebook and do all our summonses manually! Perhaps we use too much discretion!

touge_drift

personally i always carry the vert its just easier.

but the odd time at a check point id still be asked to produce at my local station i always make sure i got prof that i did, either by a receipt or the gard behind the counter be nice enough to give his name and id number if they were out of receipt books.

Reloc8

People often don't want to leave their insurance cert/driving licence in their car (I accept that they are required to have the licence with them) - they're valuable documents and inconvenient to replace.

Then they're asked to produce, often do so, and often get summonsed anyway through no fault of the individual garda applying for the summons.

I would suggest that we want to address this in as inexepensive a manner as possible.

For instance, the physical form of the irish driving licence is a joke. A credit card sized plastic card is long over due - and would surely be carried on the person by anyone sensible.

I see no reason why proof of insurance can not take the form of a credit card sized plastic card either.

This would probably eliminate 99% of requests to produce documentation.

mbeire

How about just having a credit card sized license with an electronic chip, or other secure device on it. When paying for your insurance, insurance company swipes your card which uploads your insurance details onto you licence. This also ensuring your allowed to drive and license is valid e.g. not a disqualified driver.

When the driver is stopped, the Garda is handed the licence and he radios back for driver lookup quoting license number, with a LIVE up-to-date computer system including incorporating, pulse, insurance companies, courts system, and Dept of heritage and local government (people who issue Licences), then the details on the licence are matched with what is already on licence This would show all the info showing that insurance is valid, his T&C of his insurance policy e.g. allowed to drive other vehicles, his picture on screen, physical description, and his previous enquiries, any penalty points, and also any previous FCPS issued to him.

This would do away for the need for the A4 cert. If the lad cancelled his direct debit then the live feed from the insurance company would show that his policy is cancelled even though he didn’t return the cert. This means the Garda wouldn’t have to check with insurance companies, and also spares the decent road users of having to produce paper cert. at the station, as everything can be confirmed at the road side.
If the driver doesn’t have their driving licence at the time of driving, then that’s their own hard luck, let them produce the licence within 10 days. They may carry it the next time.

If and when they would have to produce their licence at the station, then all Garda at the desk has to do is swipe the card in a card reader, and all info is automatically put onto the computer. An automatic receipt is printed detailing the Garda who you produced, date and time you’re produced, the validity of your details and a production reference number. If for some unknown reason that demanding Garda cannot locate you detail, he calls you, asks for the production number and he can then go and check that, with the details he obtained at the roadside.

Opinions??

Saruman

mbeire wrote: »

How about just having a credit card sized license with an electronic chip, or other secure device on it. When paying for your insurance, insurance company swipes your card which uploads your insurance details onto you licence. This also ensuring your allowed to drive and license is valid e.g. not a disqualified driver.

Great idea but since we still have stupid paper licenses that are inconvenient to carry and unbelievably easy to fake, I will not hold my breath for an integrated digital license system.

Great idea if it was implemented.

Anyway, to the original question....
Having your certs with you at all times in the car is pretty useless if the cert you do not have because it is stuck in the post somewhere has not actually arrived.

In this case you still need to produce them at the station and if the garda who inspects them does not do his job properly, then you get the automatic fixed penalty.

I know because it happened to me. I was taxed before I was stopped but I had not received my cert yet. I had proof (not on me) I was taxed because I paid by credit card so I had a receipt so I was never in any real danger but it still did not alter the fact that a Garda who inspected my documents at the station did not log it correctly or else the computer made a mistake or some other clerical error happened. I had to go to the trouble then of trying to figure out how to get the fixed penalty notice overturned when I should not have had to.

A receipt would have been better because it would (in my mind) have a reference number on it so all I would have had to do was go to the station (or even call), present the receipt with reference number and case closed. Instead of having to go to station (of original Garda), say I presented documents.. be told I need to write a letter to the super, write a letter and hope that is enough. It was enough but it was a load of hassle I should not have to go through.

Zambia

Saruman wrote: »

A receipt would have been better because it would (in my mind) have a reference number on it so all I would have had to do was go to the station (or even call), present the receipt with reference number and case closed. Instead of having to go to station (of original Garda), say I presented documents.. be told I need to write a letter to the super, write a letter and hope that is enough. It was enough but it was a load of hassle I should not have to go through.

I would agree but if something is to be done. Why stop there.

The Garda I assume wants to know the following.

1: Is the car Registered/Taxed
2: Do you have a licence.
3: Are you insured to drive the vehicle you are driving.

It has already been suggested that smaller certs could be the go. This still leaves the option of the one direct debit ponys out there. So in essence we should be looking at a realtime connection for the gardai of all three questions.

All this information is out there and the Gardai are entitled to it.

Its ludiricous to think if you do not have insurance you are left to drive of from the checkpiont. So you can produce later.

In essence A member should be able to complete check the above at roadside in 2-3 minutes and no more time on the driver or gardai wasted.

Saruman

Agreed, I believe police in the US all have computers in their cars and cal check things out at the roadside. Why not here?

Shield

Probably because any spare cent the government can find is being chauffeur-driven straight to Anglo?

source

Saruman wrote: »

Agreed, I believe police in the US all have computers in their cars and cal check things out at the roadside. Why not here?

Also I believe there are "Security Concerns" about the systems that would be used being hacked.....despite the fact that they've been in operation in the US for decades.

As an organisation AGS is technophobic, a move will be made to improve tech only when absolutely necessary, The issue is that when people get to the top of the organisation they implement changes that they saw as necessary when they were on the street, which could have been 10-15 years earlier. In general there is no consultation with the regular member apart from: you're getting this try out these different types and you'll get the best one we can afford.

goldie fish

I believe in Switzerland the Car Reg number is the serial number of your Driving licence.
Lo licence-no reg plate.
Also, the numbers are held on a publicly accessable directory.

Zambia

I dont subscribe to the hacked theory , simply hire the same crowd who do the banks. If someone could hank a bank why would they even bother to change their insurance details trying

Corcioch

Saruman wrote: »

Agreed, I believe police in the US all have computers in their cars and cal check things out at the roadside. Why not here?

Because the way things are going here old chap we'll soon have no cars . . . .not to mention Mobile Data Terminals in all cars.

We should indeed have them, but its all about money . . .In the US you will see plenty of patrol cars attached to stations . . .here we're lucky to have 1, maybe 2.

The Garda Inspectorate have stated that they ( Computer Aided Dispatch & Mobile Data Terminals ) should be in use, countrywide.




As for the credit card licences and the swipes . .they are ear marked for introduction, 2012 I think, they are also looking to amalgamate all the various departments with a say in licensing, cos currently there are 3 or 4.

Dept of Environment,
Dept of Justice,
Dept of Transport,

I dunno if there is a 4th.

ILA

Ah lads ye got TETRA, ASP batons, ANPR in a good few Tango cars. Apart from the DMR, I think that's more than enough gadgets to keep most divisions in good operational order. Even with TETRA in operation, I've often encountered members using mobile phones for routine enquiries which an encrypted radio system was supposedly required. So that's a double cost: the rental and minutes used on the TETRA network, and the cost of mobile phone calls.

Now, the level of cohesion between various services and Departments is something could be developed and I think IT could certainly be better utilised in that area.

MagicSean

ILA wrote: »

Ah lads ye got TETRA, ASP batons, ANPR in a good few Tango cars. Apart from the DMR, I think that's more than enough gadgets to keep most divisions in good operational order. Even with TETRA in operation, I've often encountered members using mobile phones for routine enquiries which an encrypted radio system was supposedly required. So that's a double cost: the rental and minutes used on the TETRA network, and the cost of mobile phone calls.

Now, the level of cohesion between various services and Departments is something could be developed and I think IT could certainly be better utilised in that area.

We pay for our own mobile calls.

petergfiffin

Corcioch wrote: »

As for the credit card licences and the swipes . .they are ear marked for introduction, 2012 I think, they are also looking to amalgamate all the various departments with a say in licensing, cos currently there are 3 or 4.

I don't think I'll be holding my breath for that one given this article from 2003:
http://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/credit-card-size-driving-licence-could-be-introduced-82561.html

emptyshed

How about this for a wild idea!!........

Lets obey the rules of the road.... generally not get stopped and never asked to produce any documents!!

Legal requirement for all discs to be displayed at all times in public place, tax disc didnt come in post....dont drive. Reminder gets sent to us all before expiry date, pay it, disc is out in time.

Saruman

Jaysus... stop and think about that for a moment... the answer might come to you.