Unreasonable Garda for Traffic Offence

Pro Hoc Vice

KingDH wrote: »

No I have given the exact details of what happened and I admit that pressing the brake pedal is a risky move. However you say that I blocked him from merging? How and why would I do that. I have the right of way, the traffic on the slip road has to match their speed to the flow of traffic, I am in no way obliged to move over but I did slow down to let him in between the car in front and my own but he failed to merge plus he didnt use his signals. I did slow down when overtaking the other car but not enough so that I could not finish over taking, is there something wrong with that? And like I said before, what if I actually had to brake with that Garda so close behind me? Who is at fault then? Not me, he is.

From the RSA booklet on motorway driving,

"Lane 2 – You should only use this lane for overtaking. You must move back to lane 1 once you have finished overtaking and it is safe to do so. you can also move into lane 2 to allow vehicles coming from your left to join the motorway."

http://www.rsa.ie/Documents/Road%20Safety/Leaflets/Leaf_booklets/motorway_driving.pdf

The rule is that any person joining a motorway must give way to traffic on the motorway, my own personal opinion, the driver on the motorway who slows down makes it more difficult for the person joining the motorway, as I think its more difficult to judge speed if the car is slowing, the safest thing to do is to either change to outside Lane or keep up with the flow of traffic.

To be honest OP while the other driver was out of order your driving left a lot to be desired, and in reality shows a total lack of awareness, if you can't spot a unmarked Garda car you should be heading to specsavers.

Pro Hoc Vice

KingDH wrote: »

Hi all,

I was pulled over today on the motorway for "driving recklessly" by a Garda. I was driving past a slip road at 120 km/h and approaching a slower car driving around 110 when a black ford mondeo came speeding down the slip road. There was a decent gap between me and the car in front so I slowed down to let the mondeo in, but the mondeo didnt merge in with the traffic, they also weren't using indicators. So I eventually moved into the overtaking lane to over take the other car and then the mondeo pulled onto the motorway and in behind me in the over taking lane. The mondeo sped up then and began tailgating me so I slowed down slightly but was still finishing overtaking the other car. Just as I was about to pass the other car the mondeo began flashing their headlamps, while still dangerously tailgating, so close their headlamps weren't even visible above my rear windscreen. So I tapped my brakes just to put on the lights to get him to back off, which he did, and I finished overtaking.
So the mondeo followed me for a while then I saw the blue lights from the mondeo >:( Turned out it was an undercover Garda.
He pulled me over cause I braked when he was so close to me. I said I did it because he was tailgating and wanted him to back off, might not have been the best thing to do though, but he said that it wasnt tailgating and that tailgating is doing it for like a mile. He also complained about me not letting him in from the slip road, but I have the right of way and its his responsibility to merge, which he failed to do.
Now if he had of used his sirens in the first place, because he was actually on a call, I would have moved out of his way no problem, but I thought it was just some impatient fecker dying to get home from work as it was 6pm.
I got a €60 fine and 2 penalty points which I just agreed to pay cause its probably not worth the effort to protest.
Does anyone think the Garda acted reasonably? I do admit, braking wasnt the best thing but tailgating can be quite irritating at times so I acted on impulse.

Let's go through your driving OP,

1 you are doing 120kph, and approach both a junction and another car in front doing 110, you decide to slow down first mistake, why did you not continue at your speed and move in to 2nd Lane and overtake leaving the merging car not having to guess what you are doing.

Next while overtaking, because of aggressive driving behind you you slow down joining in the aggressive driving, now in a small space at over 110kph there are 3 cars 2 of which are driving aggressively.

If the car was so close you could not see headlights you must have noticed it was an unmarked Garda car at that distance you should be able to tell his eye colour, but not you add to aggression by tapping on brakes, which is uber dangerous at that speed and distances and most importantly both you and Garda have put a innocent driver doing 110kph in serious danger.

And the most stupid thing is admitting to Garda what you did and why, "I said I did it because he was tailgating and wanted him to back off," if this ever got to court and the Garda was to read that statement, you would be lucky to just get 4 points and fine. The fact is while the driving you describe by AGS was possibly dangerous, that does not take away from the fact that so was yours.

KingDH

infosys wrote: »

From the RSA booklet on motorway driving,

"Lane 2 – You should only use this lane for overtaking. You must move back to lane 1 once you have finished overtaking and it is safe to do so. you can also move into lane 2 to allow vehicles coming from your left to join the motorway."

http://www.rsa.ie/Documents/Road%20Safety/Leaflets/Leaf_booklets/motorway_driving.pdf

The rule is that any person joining a motorway must give way to traffic on the motorway, my own personal opinion, the driver on the motorway who slows down makes it more difficult for the person joining the motorway, as I think its more difficult to judge speed if the car is slowing, the safest thing to do is to either change to outside Lane or keep up with the flow of traffic.

To be honest OP while the other driver was out of order your driving left a lot to be desired, and in reality shows a total lack of awareness, if you can't spot a unmarked Garda car you should be heading to specsavers.

It says on page 5 that you must give way to traffic already on the motorway, but really its a difficult one to debate who really has to move for the other, I chose to give him adequate space to merge rather than move into the overtaking lane as he was traveling quite fast on the slip road to begin with, but I did move over eventually and its not like he had to drive into the hard shoulder, there was still plenty of room. And I said it was at 6pm so it was dark, kinda hard to tell if ford mondeo is an unmarked Garda car or just a civilian.

brian ireland

Hilly Bill wrote: »

Why? You have a right to use the brakes its standard procedure when driving . You dont have to give a reason to the car behind as to why you braked. The car behind should be leaving a decent gap in the first place and being fined for tapping the brakes is spiteful in itself .
Going by the OP , i would appeal any fine given on such a flimsy excuse.

I always find it hard to understand what makes people like you tick.

Pro Hoc Vice

KingDH wrote: »

It says on page 5 that you must give way to traffic already on the motorway, but really its a difficult one to debate who really has to move for the other, I chose to give him adequate space to merge rather than move into the overtaking lane as he was traveling quite fast on the slip road to begin with, but I did move over eventually and its not like he had to drive into the hard shoulder, there was still plenty of room. And I said it was at 6pm so it was dark, kinda hard to tell if ford mondeo is an unmarked Garda car or just a civilian.

Yes it does say they must merge and give right if way, but it really is difficult to do if the car you will be in front of is slowing down. Say you are joining a road, your brain is calculating the safest way to merge is it in front if or behind a particular car, you decided to merge behind but that car slows down by 10kph, now your calculations are off so you slow down and on and on. Hence why the safest thing todo is move over to give room. Then move back in either in front or behind as soon as safe todo so.

Hilly Bill

brian ireland wrote: »

I always find it hard to understand what makes people like you tick.

Explain what is wrong with it.

Pro Hoc Vice

Hilly Bill wrote: »

Why? You have a right to use the brakes its standard procedure when driving . You dont have to give a reason to the car behind as to why you braked. The car behind should be leaving a decent gap in the first place and being fined for tapping the brakes is spiteful in itself .
Going by the OP , i would appeal any fine given on such a flimsy excuse.

You are of course correct, you may have hit the brakes as you thought you saw something ahead braking or some other danger, the problem is when you do it to a member if AGS and then admit the reason you did it was to get them to back off, in other words dangerous driving, or careless at the very least.

Pro Hoc Vice

Hilly Bill wrote: »

Explain what is wrong with it.

Its aggressive driving, its dangerous, and it could lead to a serious crash at speed. While its difficult, if there is a knob behind you driving like that, its safest to get out of way as quickly and safely as possible, if he wants an early grave let work away but don't help him taking you and others with him.

KingDH

infosys wrote: »

Let's go through your driving OP,

1 you are doing 120kph, and approach both a junction and another car in front doing 110, you decide to slow down first mistake, why did you not continue at your speed and move in to 2nd Lane and overtake leaving the merging car not having to guess what you are doing.

Next while overtaking, because of aggressive driving behind you you slow down joining in the aggressive driving, now in a small space at over 110kph there are 3 cars 2 of which are driving aggressively.

If the car was so close you could not see headlights you must have noticed it was an unmarked Garda car at that distance you should be able to tell his eye colour, but not you add to aggression by tapping on brakes, which is uber dangerous at that speed and distances and most importantly both you and Garda have put a innocent driver doing 110kph in serious danger.

And the most stupid thing is admitting to Garda what you did and why, "I said I did it because he was tailgating and wanted him to back off," if this ever got to court and the Garda was to read that statement, you would be lucky to just get 4 points and fine. The fact is while the driving you describe by AGS was possibly dangerous, that does not take away from the fact that so was yours.

Trust me, I learnt my lesson and thats why im just going to pay the fine. Its just unfortunate that i'll be the only one receiving the penalty when a person who has the job of upholding the law then breaks it and gets off.

Hilly Bill

infosys wrote: »

You are of course correct, you may have hit the brakes as you thought you saw something ahead braking or some other danger, the problem is when you do it to a member if AGS and then admit the reason you did it was to get them to back off, in other words dangerous driving, or careless at the very least.

Hit the brakes makes it sound worse than it is. I would prefer to use one of them turtle shells from Mario kart and a banana .

Pro Hoc Vice

KingDH wrote: »

Trust me, I learnt my lesson and thats why im just going to pay the fine. Its just unfortunate that i'll be the only one receiving the penalty when a person who has the job of upholding the law then breaks it and gets off.

I know it feels annoying, but I can assure you if you fight it, most likely you will fair worse, have at least 2 days off work, if not more and unless you know that you are happy speaking to a judge will have to pay a solicitor.

brian ireland

Hilly Bill wrote: »

Why? You have a right to use the brakes its standard procedure when driving . You dont have to give a reason to the car behind as to why you braked. The car behind should be leaving a decent gap in the first place and being fined for tapping the brakes is spiteful in itself .
Going by the OP , i would appeal any fine given on such a flimsy excuse.

infosys wrote: »

You are of course correct, you may have hit the brakes as you thought you saw something ahead braking or some other danger, the problem is when you do it to a member if AGS and then admit the reason you did it was to get them to back off, in other words dangerous driving, or careless at the very least.

infosys wrote: »

Its aggressive driving, its dangerous, and it could lead to a serious crash at speed. While its difficult, if there is a knob behind you driving like that, its safest to get out of way as quickly and safely as possible, if he wants an early grave let work away but don't help him taking you and others with him.

Hilly Bill wrote: »

Explain what is wrong with it.

Do I need to say more?

Hilly Bill

infosys wrote: »

Its aggressive driving, its dangerous, and it could lead to a serious crash at speed. While its difficult, if there is a knob behind you driving like that, its safest to get out of way as quickly and safely as possible, if he wants an early grave let work away but don't help him taking you and others with him.

How is breaking aggresive? I think you may have confused the different levels of breaking . A light tap on the break so that your break light comes on is different to breaking hard and scaring the bejesus out of the tool who is tailgating you.
Whats aggressive is someone tailgating you at speed trying to force you to move over.

Hilly Bill

brian ireland wrote: »

Do I need to say more?

Ye, do explain your point.

Pro Hoc Vice

Hilly Bill wrote: »

How is breaking aggresive? I think you may have confused the different levels of breaking . A light tap on the break so that your break light comes on is different to breaking hard and scaring the bejesus out of the tool who is tailgating you.
Whats aggressive is someone tailgating you at speed trying to force you to move over.

So you think its ok to tell a Garda that you wanted him to back off. It is aggressive driving and unsafe, at 120 kph with a car so close you can't see its headlights in your mirror any brake light coming on is dangerous, even more so when both cars on the outside are overtaking another car. Just because the other driver is aggressive does not excuse dangerous behaviour.

peckerhead

Whatever the ins and outs of who was more in the wrong, €60 and 2 points is not a big hit for a charge of reckless driving (which I understand is a step up from dangerous driving and/or simply exceeding the speed limit?). I just paid €80 and took two points because an invisible speed van snapped me doing 71kph in a 60kph zone, late at night, with an empty road and perfect visibility (it's the N69, the main road from Limerick to Foynes).

brian ireland

Hilly Bill wrote: »

Ye, do explain your point.

Its obvious if you are ignoring the points everyone else made and you will ignore mine. Kinda explains why you would put you foot on the break in the first place, in fairness.

Hilly Bill

infosys wrote: »

So you think its ok to tell a Garda that you wanted him to back off. It is aggressive driving and unsafe, at 120 kph with a car so close you can't see its headlights in your mirror any brake light coming on is dangerous, even more so when both cars on the outside are overtaking another car.

I would have said the same if he was tailgating me without the lights its far from aggressive. Its just stating that you felt unsafe with his car right on your tail.
You could be overtaking and get to a point that the car is keeping up pace and you cant fully overtake safely so you decide to adjust your speed so that you can pull back in and let the cars behind you do what they want.
If it annoys the car behind then tuff, they should be keeping their distance in the first place instead of trying to bully the car in front out the way.

Hilly Bill

brian ireland wrote: »

Its obvious if you are ignoring the points everyone else made and you will ignore mine. Kinda explains why you would put you foot on the break in the first place, in fairness.

Lets hear it first if you have one. In case you don't know, breaking is legal and a must sometimes, it helps the car slow down.

Pro Hoc Vice

Hilly Bill wrote: »

I would have said the same if he was tailgating me without the lights its far from aggressive. Its just stating that you felt unsafe with his car right on your tail.
You could be overtaking and get to a point that the car is keeping up pace and you cant fully overtake safely so you decide to adjust your speed so that you can pull back in and let the cars behind you do what they want.
If it annoys the car behind then tuff, they should be keeping their distance in the first place instead of trying to bully the car in front out the way.

In the OP he said he was overtaking, then other car pulled up tailgating, then he slowed down, he said the car he was overtaking was doing 110kph, so at 120kph would be past in a few seconds, but no he slows and then taps. Remember its not my job or any drivers job to teach the other guy manners or good driving skills, your job as driver is to 1 not get into dangerous situations and 2 get out of dangerous situations as quickly and safely as possible. Teaching a guy a lesson can end up with a few points as in this case or a lot worse in some other cases. Most accidents in cars I have seen are caused by a loose nut.

visual

Hilly Bill wrote: »

Lets hear it first if you have one. In case you don't know, breaking is legal and a must sometimes, it helps the car slow down.

Brake testing someone is both stupid and illegal. No point pretending the braking was for a legitimate reason as its been repeatedly stated it was in retaliation or more correctly due to road rage.

60 euro fine and 2 points prove how illegal it was.

Fred Swanson

This post has been deleted.

ardle1

bobbyss wrote: »

There are always two sides to every story.

1. However, I had always thought that the car behind is responsible for an accident if it bumps the car in front. Therefore it always should be at a safe braking distance behind -there is some formula for that I believe. Was the police car obeying that rule?

2. If the police car was not within this safe braking distance-is it not culpable?

3.Is there any camera evidence the police car had on board that you could request to inspect?

4. If you are driving a car at a regular speed and a car behind wants to pass you out you can safely change lanes to let it do so. Is it illegal for a following car (a police car too? ) to flash lights/beep horn to demand you let it through?

Whether the car behind was travelling at a safe distance or not, goes straight out the window if you deliberately brake in front off him,.. And why should it be illegal to flash lights/beeb horn to get someone to move out of your way! God knows what's going on most people usually have a good reason to act in that manner.......

seb65

ardle1 wrote: »

And why should it be illegal to flash lights/beeb horn to get someone to move out of your way! God knows what's going on most people usually have a good reason to act in that manner.......

Are you serious? Flashing headlights and beeping is highly distractive. Could easily cause an accident, especially at that speed.

mcgarrett

We only have the Op's version of what happened as is the norm in all these regular multi page Garda threads.

If I'm doing an overtake on the motorway and for whatever reason a car comes up close behind, I complete the overtake and move in, I don't remove my foot from the accelerator to tap the brake .

Because somebody else may be driving carelessly on the motorway doesn't mean you join in.

It appears that your actions got you pulled over and cautioned over your driving, if it was a black mondeo with plain clothes Gardai you are not going to be getting a fine in the post. However, he has left you thinking you are getting one and you will be waiting over the next few weeks for the letter to drop in the letter box.

So maybe he preferred to mess with your head than bring you to court

Hilly Bill

visual wrote: »

Brake testing someone is both stupid and illegal. No point pretending the braking was for a legitimate reason as its been repeatedly stated it was in retaliation or more correctly due to road rage.

60 euro fine and 2 points prove how illegal it was.

Road rage now????

RustyNut

Pass your complaint on to these guys and let them take a look at it. They might be able to access any video evidence available, it's what they are there for.

WayneScott

infosys wrote: »

So you think its ok to tell a Garda that you wanted him to back off. It is aggressive driving and unsafe, at 120 kph with a car so close you can't see its headlights in your mirror any brake light coming on is dangerous, even more so when both cars on the outside are overtaking another car. Just because the other driver is aggressive does not excuse dangerous behaviour.

the car behind is too close then. one should alway drive at a speed in which one can stop in the distance one can see to be clear. if the cop could stop the brake light would not trouble him

That does not excuse driving dangerously-if Op was- but it adds to the danger from someone who should know better

RustyNut

WayneScott wrote: »

one should alway drive at a speed in which one can stop in the distance one can see to be clear.

Indeed.

ardle1

seb65 wrote: »

Are you serious? Flashing headlights and beeping is highly distractive. Could easily cause an accident, especially at that speed.

Yes it could cause an accident....... If you deliberately brake and slow down!! Or if you keep staring into your rear view mirror shouting and talking to yourself :rolleyes: