A road incident reported, but no response from Gardaí

Seweryn

Hi Guys,

I am looking for an advise. On Wednesday last week as a cyclist I was involved in a road incident, which was immediately reported by making an emergency telephone call to the local Garda Station. During the conversation I was told that an action will be taken against the person that was driving a vehicle (the registration number was passed to the Garda officer that received the call) and that I will be contacted by phone the next day and that I may be called in to answer some questions.

I received no call the next day, so I rang the station and was told that there is no report in the system regarding my call on Wednesday, but I was also told that the person that was on duty that day will call me back as soon as she is on duty again. On Friday I made another call with no positive result and was told again that I will receive a call back from the person that was on duty on Wednesday (I was in shock at the time when I made the call and as a result I did not take the name of the Garda Officer that received my phone call - yes, I know, I should...).

Finally, last Saturday I decided to visit the Garda Station personally. The Officer on duty told me that in fact there is some record of my call made that day, but no details recorded. I told him the story and the registration number of the car that I require an action against and I was told that I will receive a call on Sunday or Wednesday from the person that received my first telephone call (he said he will ask two officers that potentially took my call that day). On Sunday I received no call back, neither on Wednesday. Today I rang the station asking to speak to the officer I was talking to in person last Saturday. I was told that the officer is on duty, but away and that he will call me back...

At this moment in time I have to say I am very disappointed and as far as I can see, no action has been taken against the person that caused the incident. There was nobody hurt, but it was a very serious incident that never happened to me before and I would normally just leave it, but it just went too far.

Can anybody please advise what should I do next, as I really do not want to leave this case without an action.

Captain Havoc

Contact the Garda ombudsman if you have complaints against the behavior of any members of an garda síochána.

Seweryn

Captain Havoc wrote: »

Contact the Garda ombudsman if you have complaints against the behavior of any members of an garda síochána.

Thank you Captain, I just found the website.

M cebee

i had a similar experience after an accident
It wasn't investigated properly
Same bs when i tried to follow it up with guards

Inquitus

Same thing happened to me before when the missus car was broken into. Rang the police they came out had a look said unlikely anyone would be caught, they would put it on the system etc. and be in contact. Needed the crime number for the insurance to fix the window and rang the grada station after they never got back to me, no record of the incident, luckily I remembered the name and after much chasing got the needed number.

I guess its the fault of this policing by statistics crap, rather than the Gardai, still rubbish though.

Turner

Leave a message for the Garda who you first contacted. When he is available (detailed to work a day on files/investigations) he will call you back.

Depending on how many files he has on the go would equate to your wait time.

Although you have not outlined your bicycle related incident a Cyclist + car/bus related road rage would as you can imagine take a certain priority compared to other serious crimes.

If you are unhappy with the Garda response ask to speak to a sergeant or contact the GSOC.

Jawgap

GSOC won't get involved for something like this.

If I were you I'd call into the station and ask to speak to the sergeant.

What size station is it? If you don't get satisfaction from the sergeant ask to speak to the inspector......

......and if that doesn't work write in to the Super at divisional.

I'd be very surprised if you had to do more than talk to the sergeant.

Junior

I'd second Jawgap on that, there's no real call for the ombudsman in something like this. Call the station once more, and then go in and look for the Duty Sergeant and explain the situation etc to him/her.

catastrophy

Hi Op, Weds last week isnt actually alot of time for something like this to have been dealt with. Saying that, communication could possibly be improved on. In fact the Garda in question could have had potentially 4 nights (which makes it very hard to investigate a crime) and 4 rest days in that period. That leaves the member 1 day in which they can follow up on incidents. Given how busy Kilkenny is at the moment its quite possible your incident is awaiting attention.

I believe one thing AGS is terrible at is setting expectations. Personally, I always try to give somebody a realistic timeline. As I said earlier, in this case communication could have been better.

catastrophy

Oh and just for your own benefit, jot everything down about the incident so that if your asked to give a statement you have something to refresh your memory.

morana

catastrophy wrote: »

Hi Op, Weds last week isnt actually alot of time for something like this to have been dealt with. Saying that, communication could possibly be improved on. In fact the Garda in question could have had potentially 4 nights (which makes it very hard to investigate a crime) and 4 rest days in that period. That leaves the member 1 day in which they can follow up on incidents. Given how busy Kilkenny is at the moment its quite possible your incident is awaiting attention.

I believe one thing AGS is terrible at is setting expectations. Personally, I always try to give somebody a realistic timeline. As I said earlier, in this case communication could have been better.

thats the point... dont say you will call in x days and then dont. Nothing pees people off more than lack of communication. I know that from the people on here its great to see the gardai coming on here to comment on this .

Qualitymark

Always a good idea to take two copies of a dated, typed, concise report of an accident to the nearest garda station, ask them to date-stamp your copy (if they refuse take it to another station - date-stamping it implies no acceptance but some gardai are lazy or paranoid about it).
If they have a typed-up report in the first place, they're more likely to take action. Put your phone number and email on it as well as your name and address, and say if they want you to email your report (so they don't have to type it in themselves...) you're willing to do it.

foxcoverteddy

If you cut the Gardi budget what does the country expect, give these guy's a fair crack of the whip, and make sure the law does not let the criminal walk away.
What happened to the NRA's report bad driving campaign, obviously gone out the window.
Support your Gardi, toss out the TD's

J Madone

foxcoverteddy wrote: »

If you cut the Gardi budget what does the country expect, give these guy's a fair crack of the whip, and make sure the law does not let the criminal walk away.
What happened to the NRA's report bad driving campaign, obviously gone out the window.
Support your Gardi, toss out the TD's

Did you toss out the A aswell?

Lumen

Most Garda stations record one crime or less per day
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2012/0818/breaking1.html

Seweryn

foxcoverteddy wrote: »

If you cut the Gardi budget what does the country expect, give these guy's a fair crack of the whip, and make sure the law does not let the criminal walk away.

Yeah, it is true actually. Thank you for all replies guys.

I rang the station once again yesterday and was told that I will receive a telephone call back. Still waiting...

TonyStark

Seweryn wrote: »

At this moment in time I have to say I am very disappointed and as far as I can see, no action has been taken against the person that caused the incident. There was nobody hurt, but it was a very serious incident that never happened to me before and I would normally just leave it, but it just went too far.
.

What action do you see arising from it? Is it how you want the driver in question warned or arrested? If there was no injury or damage to property then I personally can't see why the Guards would treat it as a priority.

It could be a case of the driver not driving with due care and attention, but really I would have thought an independent witness would be required or some evidence of an incident. ie injury/damage to property.

I understand your frustration, reported a car that ran through a red light myself a few months back. Barely missing myself and my girlfriend as we were going with our green light. Only to be told in a roundabout way that there is nothing really they could do.if there had been a collision it would have been a different story.

unichall

Why not just call to the station in person and make a fresh report to a garda, start again. this waiting on phone calls is pointless, stop waiting for them to come to you. its obvious there was no incident recorded for whatever reason and now you are being passed around as nobodies child. as i said, present yourself in person and make a new report and make no reference to your old report otherwise they will try pass you back to the guard who took the call who they obviously can't find. Simple advice but i bet its effective

rash

if you want to make sure an issue is logged on the Garda system, it might be better to try traffic watch rather than the local station.
http://www.garda.ie/Controller.aspx?Page=111

Used trafficwatch once before to report a drive for dangerous overtaking, was advised that they couldn't do much as it was an Eastern European car, but they would log the details in case the owner came to their attention in the future.

Seweryn

unichall wrote: »

Why not just call to the station in person and make a fresh report to a garda, start again.

Thank you for that. I think I may go and get the report done that way.

Seweryn

Hi Guys,

Just an update on the above topic .

I was called to the Garda station about three weeks ago to make a statement on a different (cycling related) incident and on that occasion I mentioned (again) the above matter. This morning I chased it up again and the sergeant rang me back telling me that they finally questioned the man on the 2nd November, so three months after my emergency call (but still…).

Cutting the story short, the questioned man apologised and even wanted to meet me in person to say how sorry he is (thank you, apologies taken, but I will pass on this…). What I was told, the man originally did not realised that he did anything wrong (well, except for trying to hit me after getting out of his truck).

All in all, I believe that any more serious terror on our roads should always be reported. And it is good enough to me that the man was questioned, told that what he did was totally wrong, then he realised his mistakes and apologised.

I am satisfied.