Gardai cause Rubbish Driving Standards in Ireland

Fore Iron

Seeing the thread about middle lane drivers in Ireland it got me thinking how different our attitude is to so many aspects of driving in this country compared to others. Personally, I blame the Guards for a large part of the general attitude out there.

Now, this will of course inevitably sound like I'm tarring all gardai with one brush which I don't mean to do but read this in the context of comparison only. How many times do you see the guards breaking the law or the rules of the road while going about their non emergency business?

Just in the past few weeks I have seen:

Garda car doing about 90mph on the motorway with no lights or sirens.

Garda car doing about 50mph through a village with no lights or sirens.

Lots of occasions of poor or no use of indicators.

Garda bike wizzing up the middle of two lines of slow moving traffic with no lights or sirens to sit at the head of the queue waiting for green. (Do no bikers out there realise how dangerous this is?)

Garda car in left lane at roundabout, me next to them in right lane. I'm heading to the right for the third exit. Halfway around the roundabout the gardai continue all the way around the roundabout to go back where they came from, cutting me off in the process and as far as I could tell they did not even know I was there.

Leaving the airport heading for the M1. As you leave the airport roundabout the two lanes from the roundabout merge into one lane. There is generally always a tussle as cars struggle for position. This one day, a big tinted window car, accelerates hard from behind me at the last minute, dives in front of me and brakes hard behind the car in front, causing me to hit the brakes too. Angrily, I rather pointlessly flash the lights and gesture. Then the guy puts on the blue flashing lights in the back window and sound the siren once. So it was an undercover car. But what the feck was the point of flashing the blue lights other than trying to intimidate me by saying "we're the Gardai, we can do what we like!". What an arrogant twat!

Heading south on King street about to turn left onto curch street. Garda car was queueing with us, when he suddenly turns on his lights and siren and makes his way through the junction, turns left, causing other traffic to stop and let him through. Fair enough. Immediately afterwards, we get the green light and turn left too just in time to see him turn off the lights and turn into whatever Garda station it is there near Chancery street. As we pass by, I can see one guy get out and put his jacket on and another guy just gotten out chatting to someone nearby-obviously not in any hurry at all.

Now, perhaps you will wonder what my problem is, but I feel that generally the Guards have very little respect for the law as it applies to themsleves and little respect for other road using citizens. In Ireland, I think a lot of Gardai see their position as firstly allowing them to have perks and an entitlement to do what they want. They have little sense of duty to the imposition of the law on the roads and the fact that they should be leading by example.

In the states, I was pulled over by a Sheriff who I passed in a 55 zone. He was doing 55 exactly in an unmarked car and I was doing about 60 or something like that. I more or less crawled past him. When I tried to defend myself he said "I don't break the law because I have respect for it. And it is my job to expect that you will do the same thing for the same reasons."

In this country, drivers see that the law doesn't appear to apply to the guards in the same way, so they end up with an attitude that the law is a bit a la carte and special people are exempt. Hence the large group of drivers who feel their particular skills are such that speed limits are really only for everyone else, or whatever.

If you saw non flashing or screaming Garda cars using indicators properly, never breaking speed limits, sticking rigidly to the rules of the road, wouldn't we all be more likely to do so too? But when you're on the M1 doing 120kph and a garda car drives by doing 140 with no lights or sirens, don't you always feel "well if it's OK for him, I can do it to"?

KamiKazi

Fore Iron wrote: »

Garda bike wizzing up the middle of two lines of slow moving traffic with no lights or sirens to sit at the head of the queue waiting for green. (Do no bikers out there realise how dangerous this is?)

Do you not realise how legal this is?

voxpop

afaik they dont use the lights or sirens until they have to as it can cause some other drivers to do crazy things, like jam on,etc

BrianD3

I've seen some rubbish driving by Gardai. The one that sticks out was an unmarked Mondeo tailgating the car in front and constantly braking yet wouldn't overtake even though he had several safe opportunities to do so. I was behind the Mondeo for around 5 miles, in that time he braked around 50 times while I braked 0 times.

Mr. Presentable

OP, out of curiosity, how do you know what business the Gardai were on?

Atomic Pineapple

I seen a squad car drive in the middle lane on the M50 a week ago, it sat in the middle lane doing 80 km/h behind another car, I was in the proper driving lane and came up to them and couldn't get into the middle lane to overtake as of course everyone in the middle lane closed up on the Garda car and wouldn't pass them.

I wasn't going to undertake them and I was fully expecting them to pull over the car doing 80 km/h in front of them in the middle lane, but no they didn't, and when I moved into my filter lane to get off the M50 cars undertook the squad car and the other car and again nothing from the Gardai!

Really annoyed me! If the Garda don't bother to enforce basic rules then whats the point in them?

Fore Iron

KamiKazi wrote: »

Do you not realise how legal this is?

OK, maybe I made it sound like legality was my only problem. Riding up the middle of two lines of traffic which are moving at say 50kph while you are riding at closer to 80kph or more is the single most ridiculously dangerous thing I see on the roads as far as I am concerned. I have seen many extremely close near misses where someone has wanted to change lanes only to spot the bike at the last second. It's almost suicide.

voxpop you may be right that perhaps they only use lights and sirens if it is safer to do so, but my point is that they should never be breaking the law unless they are on call and need to get somewhere quickly. The car breaking the speed limit by 10 or 15 mph on the motorway was hardly rushing to the scene of a crime or accident or something or he would have been sensibly going much faster. So I can't believe it was simply that he was on call but elected not to use the lights in case he spooked some drivers....

-Chris-

Thread title edited.

KamiKazi

Garda bike wizzing up the middle of two lines of slow moving traffic with no lights or sirens to sit at the head of the queue waiting for green. (Do no bikers out there realise how dangerous this is?)

Slow moving traffic waiting waiting on a green @ 80 km/h?

Uh-huh :rolleyes:

Fore Iron

Mr. Presentable wrote: »

OP, out of curiosity, how do you know what business the Gardai were on?

Of course I have no idea Mr Presentable. Silly question. I suppose you are suggesting that the garda car who cut me off on the roundabout might have been looking for potentially tyre bursting debris on the outside lane and I just didn't realise it?

Common sense does play a role here ya know!

Kamikazi, sorry to mislead you. I wasn't suggesting the garda bike I was talking about was doing 80kmh so fair enough. I was just pointing out that riding up the middle of two lanes is feckin dangerous IMO!

Atomic Pineapple

Fore Iron wrote: »

voxpop you may be right that perhaps they only use lights and sirens if it is safer to do so, but my point is that they should never be breaking the law unless they are on call and need to get somewhere quickly. The car breaking the speed limit by 10 or 15 mph on the motorway was hardly rushing to the scene of a crime or accident or something or he would have been sensibly going much faster. So I can't believe it was simply that he was on call but elected not to use the lights in case he spooked some drivers....

Just because they don't have their lights on does not mean they are not on a call.

djk1000

Gardai on duty are exempt from many traffic laws, but they can be done for careless or dangerous driving just like the rest of us.

I think the biggest problem is the huge number of Gardai that are driving without specialist training, not fair on them or on the public at large.

gleep

Don't blame the gards, until 2008/09, we allowed people to drive who had never passed a driving test FFS! :eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek:

Fore Iron

Ah jaysus, I knew this would happen! Lookit, I fully accept that a Garda car may or may not have their lights on if they are on call. But that does not explain what I am talking about. If a Garda gets a call about a robbery say 5 miles away, he won't break the speed limit only to sit and wait at the next set of lights or cut off people only to sit and queue at the next junction or whatever. So I'm not talking about selective use of lights and sirens while on call, I'm talking about blatant disregard of the rules of the road.

FIne, so they may be exempt and that's fine. But surely the right attitude would be to follow the rules and lead by example. If Garda O'Dwyer is sent across town to pick up some paperwork, or if a Traffic Corps car is simply doing the rounds keeping an eye on things, then I would fully expect them to stick rigidly to the rules in the process and therefore lead by example. Instead, they seem to decide that being exempt is a perk and they exploit it soley for their own benefit.

SuperInfinity

voxpop wrote: »

afaik they dont use the lights or sirens until they have to as it can cause some other drivers to do crazy things, like jam on,etc

Well you are naive and have no idea what you're talking about.

Many of the gardai switch on the blue lights every single opportunity they get, whether it be during rush-hour traffic or not, they're a disgrace. They will do whatever they can to get ahead, maybe sometimes they are strictly not allowed to use them.... they will just show a flagrant disregard for the rules of the road anyway. They should be setting an example to the ordinary civilians, not being the most ridiculous drivers of all, even holding up the entire middle of the city sometimes for no apparent reason. I think they get some kind of complex about them.

Once I was taken in for questioning for something stupid, the most minor of things ever, and wow, the things I saw the driver doing during rush-hour traffic. Cutting people off, flying through bus-lanes the wrong way like they were a personal gardai road, going the wrong way up through roads where people are going to be coming around a blind corner.... jesus it's amazing I came back in one piece at all. I saw things that day I've only ever seen in car scenes in action movies, and I don't want to ever see them in real life again.

And they do get into accidents, the gardai are involved in car accidents all the time, most of the time caused by themselves and the unncessary blue lights. The only reason they're not fatal is because people slow down when they hear the sirens. It's ridiculous, there's a terrible accident waiting to happen with their abuse of the lights.

mathepac

djk1000 wrote: »

Gardai on duty are exempt from many traffic laws, ...

for example ...

bladespin

Fore Iron wrote: »

OK, maybe I made it sound like legality was my only problem. Riding up the middle of two lines of traffic which are moving at say 50kph while you are riding at closer to 80kph or more is the single most ridiculously dangerous thing I see on the roads as far as I am concerned. I have seen many extremely close near misses where someone has wanted to change lanes only to spot the bike at the last second. It's almost suicide.

Only because the driver of the car in question isn't paying proper attantion to their surroundings, believe me, the bike rider certainly is, filtering can look dangerous but it's a different ball game when you're on the bike with a good view of those around you, what can seem very close to a car can in fact be quite safe.

voxpop

SuperInfinity wrote: »

Well you are naive and have no idea what you're talking about.

Many of the gardai switch on the blue lights every single opportunity they get, whether it be during rush-hour traffic or not, they're a disgrace. They will do whatever they can to get ahead.

Once I was taken in for questioning for something stupid, the most minor of things ever, and wow, the things I saw during rush-hour traffic. Cutting people off, flying through bus-lanes like they were a personal gardai road, going the wrong way up through roads where people are going to be coming around a blind corner.... jesus it's amazing I came back in one piece at all. I saw things that day I've only ever seen in car scenes in action movies, and I don't want to ever see them in real life again.

And they do get into accidents, the gardai are involved in car accidents all the time, most of the time caused by themselves and the unncessary blue lights. It's ridiculous, there's a terrible accident waiting to happen with their abuse of the lights.

Good lad - feel better after getting that off your chest :rolleyes:

So you're an expert on all Gardai because you once sat in the back of a garda car.

dr.fuzzenstein

Don't you realise the gards can do anything they want whatsoever and be excused?
How dare you mere mortal question their actions?
That is like daring to question a government minister in this country, these people are so important they are above the law.
In return the Gards let us away with any kind of sh*tty driving, as long as your tax and insurance disc is up to date, you can do what you want.
Great, isn't it?
This country is nothing but a banana republic and the government and law enforcement act accordingly, all backed up by the government policy enforcement agency (Supreme Court)

-Chris-

Fore Iron wrote: »

FIne, so they may be exempt and that's fine. But surely the right attitude would be to follow the rules and lead by example. If Garda O'Dwyer is sent across town to pick up some paperwork, or if a Traffic Corps car is simply doing the rounds keeping an eye on things, then I would fully expect them to stick rigidly to the rules in the process and therefore lead by example. Instead, they seem to decide that being exempt is a perk and they exploit it soley for their own benefit.

Two points imho:

1) I'm "paying for their salaries" so I'd rather if they were using the bus lanes, even if picking up paperwork, rather than sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic.

2) It's only a perk if they use it to get to and from work - i.e. when they're off duty.

Anan1

voxpop wrote: »

Good lad - feel better after getting that off your chest :rolleyes:

So you're an expert on all Gardai because you once sat in the back of a garda car.

Please discuss the issue without resort to personal abuse.

Humans eh!

Two incidents jump out at me reading this thread,
Having ridden motorbikes for many many years, late one night about twelve years ago, riding a little 250cc Honda rebel with my girlfriend on pillion had a bike come up behind me at max speed (old 250 two up = 60 mph) and sat directly behind me about 12" from my back wheel extremely dangerous, I thought it was one of my lunatic friends (sort of crap they might pull) but I could go no faster and wasn't able to do anything, upon seeing after several minutes that I couldn't pull off He dropped back slightly and pulled off into a side road, It was a garda bike and both myself and herself saw it clearly as I slowed down. Couldn't figure out why he'd do such a thing at the time.
Until,
The month before penalty points came in, early hours driving to Galway many years ago with herself on pillion again on a 750 going through Ballinasloe, obeying speed limits and driving carefully, a car pulled out from a side road and literally drove inches from my back wheel through the town. When I got to the outskirts I sped up - still under speed limit - and so did the car, they drove up my arse for a good mile till I got fed up and pulled away from them up to seventy seven miles an hour.......
Cue flashing lights and pull over by two of the most ignorant condescending fat plain clothes twats you could meet on an isolated road. Telling me that "77 miles an hour was a bit quick there son" and asking my wife (same girl from before) was she "Happy I was risking her life"

They risked both of our lives and safety and forced me to speed so they could relieve the boredom of being ass***es, gave me a summons sixty quid fine and drove off smiling.
Bas***ds.

djk1000

Fore Iron wrote: »

FIne, so they may be exempt and that's fine. But surely the right attitude would be to follow the rules and lead by example. If Garda O'Dwyer is sent across town to pick up some paperwork, or if a Traffic Corps car is simply doing the rounds keeping an eye on things, then I would fully expect them to stick rigidly to the rules in the process and therefore lead by example. Instead, they seem to decide that being exempt is a perk and they exploit it soley for their own benefit.

Agree 100% on that.

Voodoomelon

My biggest gripes with the Gardaí are lack of enforcing motorway rules and their lack of use of indicators, its incredibly noticeable when you see a Garda car not using them.

I get the feeling they're a lot like taxi drivers, they're on the road for so long every day they only indicate 25% of the time.

Fore Iron

bladespin, honestly no disrespect meant here.

It is exactly that kind of attitude that drives me mad. Drivers in this country only think in terms of their own tiny space they occupy on planet earth. They have no consideration whatsoever for other road users. So a biker may feel that he has everything under control but he simply has not.

Firstly, for example, I can very confidently pull out of a junction onto a roundabout behind another vehicle already on it by beginning to move out before the car has actually passed by yet. I can then vary my acceleration so that I get close to but never risk hitting the other car. No problem. But in so doing I will scare the **** out of the other driver. Yet so many road users (not just bikes by any means) never think of that. They only think of what they are doing and experiencing.

Equally, if I see a bike wizzing between lanes, I, in my car, have absolutely no idea what he will do next. So it's all well and good telling me that you might know what you are doing, but I don't know what you are doing. Bikers make the sometimes fatal mistake of assuming that all cars will keep doing what they were doing at the same speed they were doing it. Real life does not work like that. The best bike, with the best brakes and with the best rider, doing 20 or 30 kph faster than everyone else, will still be squashed falt if Granny Jemimah suddenly pulls out without looking to change lanes two seconds before you get to her. Blaming her for not looking leaves you just as dead.

Finally, even blaming the driver for not looking is missing the point. Bikers completely forget that bikes are hard to spot in rearview mirrors at any decent distance because they are tiny in comparison to other vehicles simply because the mirror is not flat. It is only when they are reasonably close that they fill the mirror and if you are speeding towards the mirror that's only split seconds away. The human eye, particularly for quick decisions, picks up relative motion best of all, but if there is no realtive motion it's feckin hard to see. So maybe Granny Smith pulled out in front of you, not because she didn't look but because you were practically impossible to see in the first place.

But perish the thought that factors outside the immediate space the motorbike (or car, or footpath) occupies would be thought of. That would require consideration for the environment, limitations and anxiety of other road users.

Speed by someone at 200mph on a motorway and you feel like you're in complete control. For someone in another car doing 70mph it's the scariest thing on the planet because they have no direct control over that oncoming missile and have no idea what it might do next. Walk on the street, go up to a random person, get right in their face and scream at the top of your voice. You'll get a similar reaction. They tense up, heart skips, and they freeze and temporarily lose their ability to make decent decisions. Best of luck with your assumption that you are in complete control when that person is reacting like that behind the wheel of the car in front of you.

(edit)

You know what this ties in nicely with my original post! Isn't this exactly what the Guards do? They drive around breaking whatever rule they like, without giving a thought to they way they and the law is perceived by the public as a result. Surely as guardians of the state, tasked with keeping the rule of law, they would respect even the laws that have been declared to not apply to them if they could possibly manage it. It's the same selfish Irish attitude that has the country in the mess it's in already. So few people think about anyone or anything other than themselves.

bladespin

Yawn, if you want to change lanes, enter a roundabout etc, it's up to you to ensure you do so safely, so it is your responsibility to check properly not assume. If you can't spot a bike in your mirror or find it hard to see them in your blind spot then you really shouldn't be driving, think about your test, observation is the single most important thing.

All bikers are aware of just how blind car drivers can be, we deal with that problem on a daily, nay, hourly basis, so take it from me, the biker is riding defensively, no-one's infalable though so I always recommend leaving a margin for safety. I do not recommend speeding past fast/moderate moving traffic, as with car drivers there will always be one that thinks they're more capable than they are.

When I'm on the bike I assume every car will try to kill me and ride accordingly, it works, I really don't car if it scares or annoys you.

KamiKazi

You mad?

You sound mad.

Fore Iron

bladespin wrote: »

If you can't spot a bike in your mirror or find it hard to see them in your blind spot then you really shouldn't be driving, think about your test, observation is the single most important thing.

I'm not talking about blind spots here bladespin. I'm talking about physics and human limitations that everyone has. Observation is no 1 of course, but things that are difficult to observe exist nonetheless. And the responsibility isn't just on one person, it's on the biker too. You can't ride reckslessly and demand everyone else squints hard at their mirror to try to spot you coming from a funny angle. You share the blame too. If roadusers in general considered other people more, I'd say you'd see a dramatic difference in the number of accidents.

wrote:

I really don't care if it scares or annoys you.

Doesn't that just sum it up? You don't care that your behaviour can cause another driver to react in such a way that could put your life at risk? That's just mad. Thank you for displaying exactly the kind of attitude I was referring to!

pegasus1

there isnt a special motorbike lane on roads bladespin afik you can only filter between lanes when the traffic is very slow moving or stopped...not doing 30ish as the Op said..

gardai should uphold the law by obeying the law themselves even ambulance drivers cannot break the law legally..

Fore Iron

Jaysus don't get me started on ambulances!

About a year ago I was in the fast lane about to overtake an ambulance when he pulled out at the last minute to overtake the car in front of him. It was as close as I've come to hitting another vehicle in a long time. After he pulled back into the slow lane and I was passing him, there he was laughing and chatting on a mobile phone! And you'd think ambulance drivers have seen enough carnage in their time...

And before anyone says it, whether or not ambulance drivers are allowed to use mobiles while driving is not the point!

bladespin

Fore Iron wrote: »

Doesn't that just sum it up? You don't care that your behaviour can cause another driver to react in such a way that could put your life at risk? That's just mad. Thank you for displaying exactly the kind of attitude I was referring to!

Please take a breath and actually read my post, I don't recommend zipping between cars at insane speeds, my actions don't put myself (or other drivers) at risk, I ride as though everything on the road is a hazard, I just point out that other drivers should be paying attention and making the excuse that it's hard to see something simply doesn't stand.

I totally agree about the need for greater consideration but history has taught me to look after number 1 first.

I hear time and again, always from car drivers, how filtering is dangerous, it's not really, as I pointed out before, what seems close often isn't, statistically it's much safer than you would imagine, I've never heard of a fatality from filtering and I've been around bikes over 20 years.

pegasus1 wrote: »

there isnt a special motorbike lane on roads bladespin afik you can only filter between lanes when the traffic is very slow moving or stopped...not doing 30ish as the Op said..

? I don't remember refering to a motorcycle lane anywhere

30ish, would be slow moving traffic IMO.

KamiKazi

pegasus1 wrote: »

there isnt a special motorbike lane on roads

There is.

It's any space wide enough to squeeze through without scratching your fairings

Anan1

KamiKazi wrote: »

You mad?

You sound mad.

* sighs *. Banned for 3 days for personal abuse.

Please, all of you, play the ball not the man.

Fore Iron

Fair enough bladespin, point taken. And I can't argue that filtering in stationarty traffic is not dangerous at all. Annoying when a bike clips your mirror yes, but not dangerous!

I would think you're 30 mph is slow moving is a little off though. And it depends entirely on how fast the filtering bike is travelling also. To be as safe as possible I think bikes should be travelling no more than just a few kph faster than the rest of the traffic. That means passing one car every few seconds. Yet so many bikes seem to want to be able to ride at the speed limit ragardless of the speed of everyone else. Relative is more important than absolute sometimes.

All the same, maybe we are getting entirely off the point. I think bikes are great, but I am heavily biased against bike riders in this country. I hate them with a passion becasue of the incredible number of recksless and dangerous and inconsiderate things I have seen them do. In fairness you could say the same for cars, but maybe my judgement is sufficiently clouded to make me miss the point.

Let me just say though that I work in an industry where human limitation and allowance for it is of great importance. I say limitations exist and must be allowed for. Even poor decision making is a limitation of the human brain for a percentage of the population. Yet drivers, and you to some extent (again no offence meant), seem to say limitations are signs of stupidity. Or inadequacy. Or poor training. Or poor discipline. But the fact is that they will never go away. Asking people to pay more attention won't fix the problem. Safer filtering or maneuvering or whatever, can.

So, lets get back to the original thread....

Gardai muppets. Bikers good. Except Gardai bikers!

bladespin

Fore Iron wrote: »

Fair enough bladespin, point taken. And I can't argue that filtering in stationarty traffic is not dangerous at all. Annoying when a bike clips your mirror yes, but not dangerous!

BH that's one of my biggest peevs about some bikers, I think it paints us all in a bad light and I'd slam anyone claiming it was ok.

Fore Iron wrote: »

I would think you're 30 mph is slow moving is a little off though.

All the same, maybe we are getting entirely off the point.
Gardai muppets. Bikers good. Except Gardai bikers!

30kmh, practically jogging speed.

Back on topic though , most gardai have some deacent training under their belts, they're usually safer than most drivers/riders, there are always those who use their skills in the wrong way; just because they can doesn't mean they should if you get me.

I've had a few occasions of AGS tail gaiting me, once with my brother in law (AGS himself) in the passenger seat, he just shook his head.

HighlanderNYPD

Fore Iron wrote: »

Just in the past few weeks I have seen:

Garda car doing about 90mph on the motorway with no lights or sirens.

I wonder what would Gardai do in this situation if sent abroad for training

MajorMax

1. about 2 years ago 2 motorcycle cops blew past me on Victoria Quay doing about 50 mph with their sirens and lights on. I drove on turned right at Heuston station onto Parkgate st and saw the two bikes outside a chippers and the two coppers inside, before anyone says anything, they were the same two bikes as one had a broken rear indicator

2. last year at ushers Quay approaching Victoria Quay the lights were in my favour. A marked estate squad car turned on it's lights and sirens pulled out without a pause causing me to brake. The squad car sped off onto the N4. I continued after them at a more sedate pace along st Johns road I came onto con colbert road and I saw the same squad car perform an illegal u-turn in the distance at Memorial road and they pulled up beside 2 motorcycle cops at a speed trap on the other side of the road. I passed them about 15 seconds later and the motorcycle cops were leaning in the window having a laugh. obviously not an emergency

3. Last year driving on the chapleizod bypass at 50 mph, 5.30 pm on a Saturday, not much traffic, lots of room in the overtake lane. I see in my side mirror a saloon approaching at about 65. It undertook me with little room to spare and I was sure I was going to lose a wing mirror. I beeped at the car and the driver puts on his emergency lights for a beat and speeds off

4. This morning driving in at Palmerstown, I'm in the left hand lane as I'll be going through Chapleisold and I'm slowing for the red lights ahead at upper kennelsworth road. A motorcycle cop blows past me at speed weaving between slowing cars. He actually gave me a fright. He did all this just to be at the head of the queue at the lights

This is just a sample I can think of another half a dozen incidents over the last couple of years. It's getting to the stage that if I see I cop car with it's lights and sirens on, I usually say to my ex-girlfriend/current wife, that their dinner must be getting cold. I was brought up in a small Irish town and I was brought up to respect the Guards. I no longer respect the Guards as I see them bending and even breaking the law to suit themselves on a constant basis.
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?:mad:

SuperInfinity

Well said MajorMax, great post. The police are literally laughing at the civilians and the abusing of their power. They hold the wishes and safety of the ordinary citizens they're supposed to be serving in contempt.

A large fraction of people if not the majority, can't handle the slightest bit of power or authority without abusing it. At first they'll be alright, they'll be shy about their power. But then as time goes on and they receive no warnings or reprimands about what they do, it'll continue to get worse... a bit like a dog who doesn't get reprimanded for unwanted behaviour. Also this "culture of corruption" where they see others doing it and getting away with it, they don't want to miss out. They think: "I can sit in traffic and waste my time, or drive home in style really fast", of course this doesn't apply to all police but a large proportion of them.

audi4444

on tuesday evening driving ennis to kilkee met convoy of elite armered squad cars all volvo's sirens lights doing 120mph . tought it was life or death situtation found out after they had picked up the that killer of them 2 women and children in limerick
my question was it right to endanger everyone else on the road with such speed just because they can.did it really make a difference if they were 15 mins. later questioning him or if he had to go to hospital (pity he didn't die). the speed of them on the road lines of traffic both ways utter madness and they have the neck to caution us at times :mad:

guil

theres a guard in my local station, he's there years but anytime i see him in a squad car or his own personal car, he is on his mobile
double standards eh

Wicklowrider

Just a note regarding the blue lights, chip shops/sandwiches or whatever.
I have left a fire station under blue lights, been stood down enroute and stopped for fill up diesel. While we were in the petrol station we bought choc ices. Now when I think about it I just know there are people who pulled over to let us through traffic and then saw us eating ice cream. I bet they thought we were real so & sos. You never know unless you are in the vehicle.
That in no way goes to excuse dangerous or belligerent driving mentioned elsewhere on this thread.

L1011

gleep wrote: »

Don't blame the gards, until 2008/09, we allowed people to drive who had never passed a driving test FFS! :eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek:

We still do. Amnesty licences and pre-whatever-year the driving test was introduced drivers (very few of the latter, lots and lots of the former).

sean1141

was behind a marked car thursday in portlaoise and they stopped right on the middle of a pedestrian crossing in slow moving traffic!!

Mimikyu

This post has been deleted.

AugustusMinimus

What always gets me here are people defending Gardai driving on the sole basis that they've done the advanced driving course.

So what. Does this make their reaction times better. I seriously doubt doing a course like that will dramatically improve their driving ability to do some of the following which have been defended on here on the basis that they've done the course.

1. Tailgating in order to pressurise a driver to speed
2. Driving contra flow down the South Ring Road in Cork in peak traffic as a high speed.

opinion guy

I agree with OP.
Seen alot of this type of thing in the last year. To be honest I think it became noticeably more prevalent after the public sector paycuts last year.

Just last week a garda car passed me on motorway, then when just about a car lengthahead of me, slowed down and drifted over into my lane before then speeding off properly back in his own lane. Frankly I think it was deliberate intimitidation as I couldn't see that he was using the phone or anything. This incident alone has me thinking of getting an in car video recording system

Fighting Irish

Fore Iron wrote: »

Ah jaysus, I knew this would happen! Lookit, I fully accept that a Garda car may or may not have their lights on if they are on call. But that does not explain what I am talking about. If a Garda gets a call about a robbery say 5 miles away, he won't break the speed limit only to sit and wait at the next set of lights or cut off people only to sit and queue at the next junction or whatever. So I'm not talking about selective use of lights and sirens while on call, I'm talking about blatant disregard of the rules of the road.

FIne, so they may be exempt and that's fine. But surely the right attitude would be to follow the rules and lead by example. If Garda O'Dwyer is sent across town to pick up some paperwork, or if a Traffic Corps car is simply doing the rounds keeping an eye on things, then I would fully expect them to stick rigidly to the rules in the process and therefore lead by example. Instead, they seem to decide that being exempt is a perk and they exploit it soley for their own benefit.

We are paying their wages, sitting at traffic lights, driving around in slow traffic wastes so much money, i'm happy for them to do whatever they want as long as they don't cause any accidents

WhodahWoodah

I have no problem with the cops breaking the rules of the road when they have their flashers on. I kinda thought that was the point of the flashers - to warn all the other traffic on the road to be extra careful so that our law enforcement / emergency health services / fire department can get to where they're going that extra 5 mins faster because it's an emergency.

I don't agree with flashers being used in non-emergencies because sirens and flashers or not, the rules of the road are there for a reason and creating a hazard by breaking them is only an acceptable trade-off where there's a crime / health / fire emergency.

I think any emergency services people breaking the rules of the road in a non-emergency and without using their flashers and sirens that they're fully equipped with should rack up penalty points until they lose their licences.

What happens when these vehicles pass speed cams? Are their infractions simply wiped off the system or does someone check the call log to see whether they were actually on a legitimate emergency when they were clocked doing 50k over the speed limit (or whatever else they might have been doing)? Do they carry some sort of speed cam blocker on board so the cams don't photo them at all?

I think there's a time and a place for emergency services vehicles to do their weaving and speeding, and that's in an emergency, and with the flashers and sirens on full blast to warn the rest of us to get out of the way.

Lastly to bike drivers - during my driving lessons, my instructor gave me some great advice which was to permanently imagine that there's a motorbike driving at each corner of my car. He said that then everytime I made a manoeuvre I was to check what the motorbikes were doing. I do this and have never even nearly clipped a bike. However no motorcyclist wants to be killed and no driver wants to kill one, so for the motorcyclists who DO weave through traffic or overtake multiple cars at speeds much faster than the moving traffic, please just remember that not everyone is driving with a motorbike at all 4 corners of their car - and cars / vans / trucks are all much bigger than your bike so if it comes to a collision, you're not going to come off so well so perhaps it's not the best idea to startle the drivers!

We do watch out for ye but some (not all) of ye really are quick little feckers!

indioblack

Fore Iron wrote: »

Seeing the thread about middle lane drivers in Ireland it got me thinking how different our attitude is to so many aspects of driving in this country compared to others. Personally, I blame the Guards for a large part of the general attitude out there.

Now, this will of course inevitably sound like I'm tarring all gardai with one brush which I don't mean to do but read this in the context of comparison only. How many times do you see the guards breaking the law or the rules of the road while going about their non emergency business?

Just in the past few weeks I have seen:

Garda car doing about 90mph on the motorway with no lights or sirens.

Garda car doing about 50mph through a village with no lights or sirens.

Lots of occasions of poor or no use of indicators.

Garda bike wizzing up the middle of two lines of slow moving traffic with no lights or sirens to sit at the head of the queue waiting for green. (Do no bikers out there realise how dangerous this is?)

Garda car in left lane at roundabout, me next to them in right lane. I'm heading to the right for the third exit. Halfway around the roundabout the gardai continue all the way around the roundabout to go back where they came from, cutting me off in the process and as far as I could tell they did not even know I was there.

Leaving the airport heading for the M1. As you leave the airport roundabout the two lanes from the roundabout merge into one lane. There is generally always a tussle as cars struggle for position. This one day, a big tinted window car, accelerates hard from behind me at the last minute, dives in front of me and brakes hard behind the car in front, causing me to hit the brakes too. Angrily, I rather pointlessly flash the lights and gesture. Then the guy puts on the blue flashing lights in the back window and sound the siren once. So it was an undercover car. But what the feck was the point of flashing the blue lights other than trying to intimidate me by saying "we're the Gardai, we can do what we like!". What an arrogant twat!

Heading south on King street about to turn left onto curch street. Garda car was queueing with us, when he suddenly turns on his lights and siren and makes his way through the junction, turns left, causing other traffic to stop and let him through. Fair enough. Immediately afterwards, we get the green light and turn left too just in time to see him turn off the lights and turn into whatever Garda station it is there near Chancery street. As we pass by, I can see one guy get out and put his jacket on and another guy just gotten out chatting to someone nearby-obviously not in any hurry at all.

Now, perhaps you will wonder what my problem is, but I feel that generally the Guards have very little respect for the law as it applies to themsleves and little respect for other road using citizens. In Ireland, I think a lot of Gardai see their position as firstly allowing them to have perks and an entitlement to do what they want. They have little sense of duty to the imposition of the law on the roads and the fact that they should be leading by example.

In the states, I was pulled over by a Sheriff who I passed in a 55 zone. He was doing 55 exactly in an unmarked car and I was doing about 60 or something like that. I more or less crawled past him. When I tried to defend myself he said "I don't break the law because I have respect for it. And it is my job to expect that you will do the same thing for the same reasons."

In this country, drivers see that the law doesn't appear to apply to the guards in the same way, so they end up with an attitude that the law is a bit a la carte and special people are exempt. Hence the large group of drivers who feel their particular skills are such that speed limits are really only for everyone else, or whatever.

If you saw non flashing or screaming Garda cars using indicators properly, never breaking speed limits, sticking rigidly to the rules of the road, wouldn't we all be more likely to do so too? But when you're on the M1 doing 120kph and a garda car drives by doing 140 with no lights or sirens, don't you always feel "well if it's OK for him, I can do it to"?

Driving on a dual carrigeway last year - 100kph - came upon roadworks - 60 limit - slowed to 60. A car shot past me, well over 60 - probably still at 100kph - past me and a Gardai car, the driver of which did absolutely nothing! A good 40 kph over the limit - back home he'd have been crucified.

jacool

I always try and copy members of An Gárda Síochána because
a) I never read the rules of the road and
b) I am unable to think for myself.
I think we can obviously lay the blame for all road 239 deaths in 2009 at their feet.
For a second there I thought it was us just being lazy, selfish and bad drivers.

Bazzo

MajorMax wrote: »

1. about 2 years ago 2 motorcycle cops blew past me on Victoria Quay doing about 50 mph with their sirens and lights on. I drove on turned right at Heuston station onto Parkgate st and saw the two bikes outside a chippers and the two coppers inside, before anyone says anything, they were the same two bikes as one had a broken rear indicator

I once had a an unmarked car speed out in front of me at a junction where I had right of way, causing me to slam on the brakes and swerve. When I continued on the car was parked up outside the chinese down the road. There was no pressing matter going on that I could see, and even if they WERE taking a statement, no excuse for the dangerous driving they exhibited to get there, whoever caused the trouble was gone so there was no rush to get there.

I've also never once seen a garda car indicating at a roundabout in my home town. I've seen them at the roundabouts dozens if not hundreds of times(there are a lot around my home town, despite it being a middling-sized town) and not once have I seen them indicating, half the time using an incorrect lane to boot.

It really grinds my gears!:pac: