Whats the Point Reporting Accident?

detones

So long story short. Had a collision with a car last night commuting home on Dorset st. Not going to go into details of accident but driver was totally at fault. Myself and a friend who was cycling behind me where involved in the collision. The driver had no English. We got his insurance details and picked ourselves up and limped home another 25k or so unfortunately. I sustained a blow to my right leg and its sore today and its tough enough to walk, I had it checked out and it just bad bruising.

Anyway I'm not out of pocket as my insurance covers the medical cost. My bike is grand. I decided to report the accident as i thought it was the right thing to do. Found the process a bit of let down. Essentially I was told unless I want to pursue criminal charges the Guards don't seem interested. I thought the information I gave would be kept on file or noted or even a basic check done to see if the car was insured etc involved in other accidents. It was just left that the Garda I reported it to would call me in a couple of days to see if I still wanted to pursue it.

Does anybody know what is meant to happen when you report an accident? Surely its important to record these incidents even if no criminal charges are pursued.

schemingbohemia

This unfortunately is the standard AGS response, they do everything to try and put you off pursuing it.
There is generally no follow up, everything is down to one individual Garda so if they're not in work you have to call back and due to their shift patterns that can be difficult to arrange a meeting.
Unless you get really lucky with the Garda you're dealing with it will likely be hugely frustrating and lead to nothing. No input into PULSE from what I could see, god help you if you forget the name of the Garda you were dealing with as it just disappears into the ether (as happened with me).

ED E

If the driver is at fault why are you giving him a pass? 3pts is how this is recorded.

gordongekko

It's also informs public policy. The stats are looked at a policy decisions are made based in part of these stats

_Brian

Best report it to the drivers insurance company.
The company will want to know this as this person is a greater risk than a good driver and so should be paying more premium.

Fining him via increased premium is a method of teaching the driver to be more careful in future.

magicbastarder

does that work though? if the insurance company are informed of such an incident and there's no accompanying garda report, surely they can't act on it without opening up the system to abuse. otherwise people would be making spurious grudge reports.

_Brian

Policy holder will be contacted by insurance company and will have to explain.

Presume you have photos etc as evidence of the accident to support your position. Insurance company will jump at chance to stiff policy holder with increased policy prices. They don’t rely on AGS reports.

magicbastarder

cancel the policy, move to a different insurer - if no actual claim is made, can it affect your NCB?

tomoliver

_Brian wrote: »

Policy holder will be contacted by insurance company and will have to explain.

Presume you have photos etc as evidence of the accident to support your position. Insurance company will jump at chance to stiff policy holder with increased policy prices. They don’t rely on AGS reports.

there would have to be a claim involved

they wont just jack up the insurance like that

tomoliver

magicbastarder wrote: »

cancel the policy, move to a different insurer - if no actual claim is made, can it affect your NCB?

the driver can land in trouble if he doesn't report the accident to his insurer


if for example the cyclist claims down the line and the accident isn't reported ,the driver may have his policy cancelled

buffalo

I'm in a similar frame of mind. I have four incidents from a two week period in November that I haven't bothered to report to Trafficwatch, because I just don't think there's any point. One was very deliberate (came back to explain why he'd done it), one was aggressive, and the other two were completely reckless.

The effort of the phone call is actually too much for the chance of pay-off with any of those drivers getting an actual punishment.

Wishbone Ash

detones wrote: »

...Does anybody know what is meant to happen when you report an accident? Surely its important to record these incidents even if no criminal charges are pursued.

I've been in 3 accidents where I've been injured and I don't recall any difficulty or disinterest from AGS. I thought it was a legal requirement to report any accident where there is any personal injury.

_Brian wrote: »

... Insurance company will jump at chance to stiff policy holder with increased policy prices....

WTF? There is competition in the motor insurance market. As has been said, why would any company 'stiff' a customer with no claim against them. They'd just go to someone else.

tomoliver

Wishbone Ash wrote: »

I've been in 3 accidents where I've been injured and I don't recall any difficulty or disinterest from AGS. I thought it was a legal requirement to report any accident where there is any personal injury.

WTF? There is competition in the motor insurance market. As has been said, why would any company 'stiff' a customer with no claim against them. They'd just go to someone else.

i'm not sure what it's like in the city but if i saw dangerous driving down here and reported it the driver would most likely be getting a visit from the gards imo

thats the way things work out the country anyways

detones

ED E wrote: »

If the driver is at fault why are you giving him a pass? 3pts is how this is recorded.

If that's the case it's worth considering. They didn't really explain what was meant by taking a case against him. In fact the whole interaction was a bit humiliating to be honest. Having to give out personal details in a cramped packed public counter to a less than helpful Gaurd. Everyone hearing every detail of my crash and where I was injured. I have no interest in any personal reimbursement. I just want to ensure this lad isn't a danger out there and ends up seriously injuring or killing someone.

ED E

detones wrote: »

If that's the case it's worth considering. They didn't really explain what was meant by taking a case against him. In fact the whole interaction was a bit humiliating to be honest. Having to give out personal details in a cramped packed public counter to a less than helpful Gaurd. Everyone hearing every detail of my crash and where I was injured. I have no interest in any personal reimbursement. I just want to ensure this lad isn't a danger out there and ends up seriously injuring or killing someone.

Call Traffic Watch. Dont do it at lunchtime or end of shift (7-8pm etc). Report it to a civilian in Castlebar.

The Garda assigned will then call you and invite you down to give a statement in an interview room. You can even prefill the statement form, I've attached it. Leave the member to fill in the particulars.

Most of the time they'll call the driver in and ask them to cop to it for an FCPN instead of going to court (1 pt becomes 3, 3 become 5 etc in court) and they'll see sense.

tomoliver

ED E wrote: »

Call Traffic Watch. Dont do it at lunchtime or end of shift (7-8pm etc). Report it to a civilian in Castlebar.

The Garda assigned will then call you and invite you down to give a statement in an interview room. You can even prefill the statement form, I've attached it. Leave the member to fill in the particulars.

Most of the time they'll call the driver in and ask them to cop to it for an FCPN instead of going to court (1 pt becomes 3, 3 become 5 etc in court) and they'll see sense.

be prepared for court when dealing the gardai

that's their business -charging people


it may not go that far but it can

Wishbone Ash

detones wrote: »

.... the whole interaction was a bit humiliating to be honest. Having to give out personal details in a cramped packed public counter ....

I'd agree with you there, not helped when the Garda concerned keeps asking you to repeat everything.

tomoliver wrote: »

be prepared for court when dealing the gardai

that's their business -charging people


it may not go that far but it can

I've been willing to go to court several times but the Gardai have always chickened out.

Don't know why you make it sound like the person has something to lose - it's not as if it were a civil matter.

Thud

Wishbone Ash wrote: »

I've been willing to go to court several times but the Gardai have always chickened out.

Don't know why you make it sound like the person has something to lose - it's not as if it were a civil matter.

I have a close pass in the works at the moment (gave statement in station and with video footage) AGS seem keen to tell me it's unlikely to be strong enough in a court, car has no other reports against it (probably because any previous incidents got this same treatment) and them giving the driver a warning should suffice.....it kinda puts you off pushing for court when they seem very reluctant and tell you it won't succeed.

You'd wonder how many of these get pushed back and how many people don't bother reporting after the first experience with AGS

seamus

magicbastarder wrote: »

does that work though? if the insurance company are informed of such an incident and there's no accompanying garda report, surely they can't act on it without opening up the system to abuse. otherwise people would be making spurious grudge reports.

It does indeed work. Insurance companies treat these things on a good faith basis. They'll take your details, run a check to see if you have any other claims in the last few years (all the insurance companies have a massive shared database), realise that you're not a piss taker and provided that the claim isn't huge (usually less than a grand), they'll just settle it to make it go away.

A few years back my wife came out of the shops to find a car basically parked on top of hers. Bit of scuffing to the bumper, nothing crazy. She waited around for 20 minutes, no sign of the other driver.

So she took the insurance details & rang the insurance company who told her to take some photos and go get a quote. Bingo-bango, damage fixed, insurance company paid up.

People always seem shocked when I tell the story, but realistically insurance companies have the power to do this - i.e. pay out without even contacting the policyholder - and they will pay up more often than not.

Weepsie

Is it a criminal matter though?

It's likely a civil matter and the gardai might be right to laugh at the idea of a criminal case being opened.

That said, I had an accident about a yar ago, both I and driver reported it. Statements were given, contacted by both gardai who took statements. Everyone agreed it was just one of those incidents and got on with life, Gardai were happy with that but asked if I was absolutely sure I didn't want to pursue it further.

mattser

Such an array of responses to the OP. Just shows that the general public haven't a clue, ( mods and all ), when it comes to law.

detones

mattser wrote: »

Such an array of responses to the OP. Just shows that the general public haven't a clue, ( mods and all ), when it comes to law.

Could you please enlighten us all then

magicbastarder

mattser wrote: »

Just shows that the general public haven't a clue, ( mods and all )

just an FYI; mods are not chosen based on their knowledge of AGS procedures, the selection process is purely based on sex appeal.

What Username Guidelines

Thud wrote: »

You'd wonder how many of these get pushed back and how many people don't bother reporting after the first experience with AGS

I've had poor experiences every time, and not an intent to put others off, but I don't bother anymore. The first couple of TrafficWatch reports (close passes and one road rage incident with spitting involved) were replied to very quickly by local stations, but each call had a heavy tone of "I don't care and I'm just ticking a box by calling you" with lots of "but you know you'll have to go to court" which I read as the Garda saying "Please, I don't want to go to court too".

Finally, I had a more serious incident where I was knocked down by a driver making an illegal turn without indicating or checking mirrors, with some damage done to the bike. All on camera. Four Gardai arrived about 1.5hrs after it happened and stood around for a bit. Wouldnt watch the footage. Civil matter for damages. Suggested maybe I report it via TrafficWatch due to illegal turn, no indicating, etc.. "Ah sure it'll just come back to us" he said with a smile. Almost seemed proud that he didn't care.

maldondo

OP, this is a road traffic accident and should be treated the same way you would if you were in a car or indeed a pedestrian. You've been injured through no fault of your own and you should inform the drivers insurance company so that you can be compensated for any losses you incur.

The nature of these types of injuries is that sometimes its not until the next couple of days that you realise there's a problem or even weeks or months down the line.

You can report the incident to the insurers without initiating a claim right now but it leaves the door open for you to do so.

Eamonnator

mattser wrote: »

Such an array of responses to the OP. Just shows that the general public haven't a clue, ( mods and all ), when it comes to law.

I was a Garda for 30 years, I'm retired a number of years, I had quite a lot of experience investigating traffic collisions.
I was going to make a few observations in this thread, but then decided, I just couldn't be arsed.

tomoliver

Eamonnator wrote: »

I was a Garda for 30 years, I'm retired a number of years, I had quite a lot of experience investigating traffic collisions.
I was going to make a few observations in this thread, but then decided, I just couldn't be arsed.

ok thanks for the insight

ford2600

The primary reason for reporting would be in case a loss became apparent some time after the accident, in that you then have an independent verification of accident having occurred.

If it transpires that driver was uninsured you are not covered under MIBI scheme if you haven't reported it to Gardai within a very narrow time frame.

I've dealt a lot with Gardai over a 20 yr plus period. In that time the level of service provided has plummeted. For example in recent times in a number of serious cases of very obvious insurance fraud I've been met with disinterest/silence despite repeated correspondence from insurance company/solicitor demanding engagement and in some cases even a reply.

Recently I've been in contact with a couple of PSNI officers and was reminded of the way things used to be.


The reasons we got there are complicated I would think and fixing it won't be easy but its critical to do if we are to have a properly functioning republic.

average_runner

Thud wrote: »

I have a close pass in the works at the moment (gave statement in station and with video footage) AGS seem keen to tell me it's unlikely to be strong enough in a court, car has no other reports against it (probably because any previous incidents got this same treatment) and them giving the driver a warning should suffice.....it kinda puts you off pushing for court when they seem very reluctant and tell you it won't succeed.

You'd wonder how many of these get pushed back and how many people don't bother reporting after the first experience with AGS

A court appearance for a close pass ? Doubt it will ever happen.
Maybe some penalty points.

tomoliver

ford2600 wrote: »

The primary reason for reporting would be in case a loss became apparent some time after the accident, in that you then have an independent verification of accident having occurred.

If it transpires that driver was uninsured you are not covered under MIBI scheme if you haven't reported it to Gardai within a very narrow time frame.

I've dealt a lot with Gardai over a 20 yr plus period. In that time the level of service provided has plummeted. For example in recent times in a number of serious cases of very obvious insurance fraud I've been met with disinterest/silence despite repeated correspondence from insurance company/solicitor demanding engagement and in some cases even a reply.

Recently I've been in contact with a couple of PSNI officers and was reminded of the way things used to be.


The reasons we got there are complicated I would think and fixing it won't be easy but its critical to do if we are to have a properly functioning republic.

Gardai staffing levels are threadbare down here in fairness-don't know how it compares up north

then you have the useless judicial system and paperwork on top of that


if nobodys going to be charged or prosecuted as is often the case following a complaint i can see why gards can't be bothered

Thud

average_runner wrote: »

A court appearance for a close pass ? Doubt it will ever happen.
Maybe some penalty points.

that wasn't an option as far as i was made aware, it would have to go to court for that