Reporting dangerous driving

2lazytogetup

is there any point in reporting dangerous driving to the gardai, even if there is no accident or video footage. a car drove along the white box and nearly crashed into the back of me. i have noted that the car has no NCT but cant see where i can report that.

TheBoyConor

No.
Gardai definitely won't do anything unless you are prepared to give evidence in court.
That is the first question they ask when getting a complaint like this "so, are you willing to spend a day in court as a witness"? knowing full well that 99% of people won't want to do that and are just off on a rant.
They really aren't interested in complaints of this nature.

biko

If nothing happened or no-one was hurt I doubt garda will bother.
But do call into your local station and ask.

TheBoyConor

What for? What is the point? They are not going to do anything. it is a waste of both the OP and the Garda's time.
Nothing is going to come of it unless the OP is prepared to go to court and squeal. Not a good look to have for yourself that you'll squeal at the drop of a hat.

2lazytogetup

thank you guys. i was kind of wondering if enough people complained about it the gardai would take some action. but doubt other people will go to court to be a witness. suppose i dont know if this person does this kind of dangerous driving regularly but sure she will end up in an accident eventually.

TheBoyConor

I'd say forget about it and move on. It is not up to you to police the rules of the road.
If she is that bad the Gardai will catch her in action sooner or later.

2lazytogetup

thanks again, i appreciate the input.

Mango Joe

Related to all of the above....Can someone submit dashcam footage of dangerous driving, say for example aggressive tailgating and just let the Gardai follow through on a prosecution?

ie. nobody should have to spend a day in Court being harrassed by some crappy defence Solicitor while pressing for a conviction in a case like this surely?

TheBoyConor

No.

Think about it. If the Gardai had to look at and follow up on dashcam footage sent in by every outraged motorist they would get literally nothing else done.

Gardai quite rightly prioritise the more serious matters and they are not going to spend scarce resources on relatively trivial road rule breaches where they would have to rely on third party evidence and testimony.
They will only be interested in dashcams if it relates to a significant accident with injury or where liability is disputed.

To expect the Gardai to prosecute someone who cuts you off or passes you out in a way you don't approve of is fanciful thinking.

The reality is that the Gardai need to catch you in the act to do anything. And for people who are very bad and repeatedly do crazy driving, they will eventually do it in sight of a Garda and then they will be caught out.

Having said that, I have often accidentally sped and made illegal turns in my car and ran red lights on my bike when in plain sight of the Gardai but they didn't bat an eyelid. Probably dealing with something else at the time.

bigtimecharlie

I had a close call late last year. Car at speed took a left turn at a T junction and into the gap between me and the car in front. How I didn't hit him I don't know.

I called in to local station after this and ask about what could be done. The response was, take the reg number of car and had it in to station. They would then speak to vehicle owner but not do anything more.

markpb

I reported a near-crash to the Gardai last July. I gave an official statement and said I was willing to go to court if necessary. They said they couldn't just warn the other driver anymore. Instead they would present my statement and ask if he would accept an FCPN. If he didn't, it would go to court. I haven't heard anything in over six months. Total waste of everyone's time.

TheBoyConor

They probably just told you that to placate you and get you off their back about it. I highly doubt that they followed up with cold calling the driver.

CrankyHaus

Normal Gardai won't do much, in fact they'll ignore dangerous driving that happens right in front of them.
Report to Trafficwatch and it will get forwarded to Traffic Corps who IME are very good at following up. You will need to be willing to give Evidence, as otherwise they have no hope of a conviction if the accused simply denies it. The Garda wasn't there.

Duckjob

Deedsie wrote: »

A guy I work with drives like an absolute moron. 100Km/h in 50km/h zones. An ignorant fool best describes him. Every evening and morning on his way to work he drives passed a primary and secondary school. Its before 8 in the morning but there are kids all over the place at 4 when we finish etc.

I am genuinely worried he is going to hit a child some day.

Not an approachable person. An absolute p***k. If he does crash I really hope its only his neck he breaks.

Only can only hope that idiots like that take themselves out before they kill or maim someone else.

RobbieMD

CrankyHaus wrote: »

Normal Gardai won't do much, in fact they'll ignore dangerous driving that happens right in front of them.
Report to Trafficwatch and it will get forwarded to Traffic Corps who IME are very good at following up. You will need to be willing to give Evidence, as otherwise they have no hope of a conviction if the accused simply denies it. The Garda wasn't there.

It doesn’t necessarily go to Roads policing. It will be assigned to whatever Garda district the alleged offence occurred in.

CrankyHaus

RobbieMD wrote: »

It doesn’t necessarily go to Roads policing. It will be assigned to whatever Garda district the alleged offence occurred in.

Any time I called I got traffic police in the relevant district, and was impressed by them. Maybe that's just Dublin where they have that resourcing.

SniperSight

Regarding the dash cam footage...yes it can be submitted as evidence, however the person who recorded the video would still have to provide a statement and appear in court to "prove" the footage...that is, to give an account of how they came upon the footage, how it was recorded, if it was edited, that the times/date are correct, that it was shown in person to a Garda and that they actually gave a true copy of the footage to a Garda on such a date.

You cant just send Youtube link to a video of Irelands Worst Drivers and expect any prosecution.

If people arent willing to follow it to court than theres not much can be said.
Even if a person is willing to go to court, the other person can give a statement denying the claims and if thats the case, without any other witness or cctv it becomes one word against another and the deciding Inspector or Super may decide it wont hold in court.

Its very easy to say that the Guards will do nothing so dont bother...but at least if you report it youve done your bit...its in the Gardais hands then, if they dont follow it up or it goes nowhere well then youve done what you could. Plenty of Guards do follow up these incidents but often ultimately the decision to prosecute is not in their hands.

DaveyDave

Just thought I'd give my experience on this. Traffic Watch and the low rank Gardai you deal with are helpful and appreciate you trying to make an effort. It seems it won't go past their supervisors desk unless it's a more serious incident, or if they're a cyclist and can relate for example. Here's my experiences with making statements.

I've been fobbed off twice because I was the passenger. They wanted the driver to also make a report who had no interest in going.

-Taxi on the M50 tailgating us in the outside lane. Heavy traffic but keeping up with the car in front. We move to middle lane as we get closer to our exit, taxi moves over and brake tests us in rush hour traffic. I start recording him on my phone, he brakes one or two more times then he quickly starts to behave and moves to another lane once he spots the phone.

-Taxi coming off the N4 at Liffey Valley at the roundabout before the Arc, taxi in the left lane moves over the solid line into the right lane without indicating causing us to brake hard. Further down in the bus lane on the Fonthill Road my friend beeps to have words, taxi driver tells him to fúck off and swerves at us.

-Cycling on Phibsboro Road, keeping up with traffic doing approx 40-45kph, taxi moves up beside me over a solid white forcing me over into on street parking approaching a parked car. Submitted GoPro helmet cam footage along with statement.

-Driving, coming off the N4 at Woodies inbound, car behind me goes into the bus lane and swerves aggressively back in behind me because there's a taxi picking someone up. At the next lights the second the light goes green they're beeping even though the car in front moves off immediately. She then undertakes me in the 24hr bus lane and the speed sign flashes her doing 79 in a 50 zone. Submitted clear dashcam footage of this because of her aggression, this was midweek with feck all traffic. There's me thinking the speed sign was the cherry on top.

The only one I heard back from was the driver swerving at us. They went to his house to give him a warning. The incidents need to be reported at the station local to where it happened so might not be near you and with Gardai working awkward shifts it can be difficult to find time to meet them and can be up to 2 hours out of your day.

I'm willing to go to court every time if necessary. In the case of brake testing that's a mandatory court appearance, but the supervising Gardai obviously didn't decide to go forward with it.

Now I'll only report something if it's a serious issue, like if someone was to get out of the car and hit the window or something. Although I caught a prison van running a stale red on the N4 the other day I may report that for giggles...

zoobizoo

I reported dangerous driving.

20 mins down the road the Gardai had him pulled over.

They called me in to make a statement and rang me to see if I wanted to take it to court. No footage. No witnesses other than me.

The garda said "he was very apologetic and seemed to have learned his lesson" If I didn't want to take it further. I left it at that.

Each time yiu report a driver it is recorded and if the driver has form, they can take action. E.g. calling them or calling into them.

Another driver I reported, turns out it was a rented car driven by 2 elderly tourists.

sonyvision

markpb wrote: »

I reported a near-crash to the Gardai last July. I gave an official statement and said I was willing to go to court if necessary. They said they couldn't just warn the other driver anymore. Instead they would present my statement and ask if he would accept an FCPN. If he didn't, it would go to court. I haven't heard anything in over six months. Total waste of everyone's time.

About 8 years ago I had a similar incident, reported a partial reg to the station. A few minutes later they had patrols searching the area (I was dropping a person off and returning the same road).

Came accross the car parked up on a drive called the station and they asked me to call in. Gave a statement, prepared to go into court yes...

Can't recall how long had passed but they phoned me to say the driver accepted a fixed charge noticed, fines and penalty points.

At the time I was raging do I regret my action no, do I think that person might change his behaviour in future for what I could only describe as dangerous, self centred and totally irresponsible driving? Maybe.

SniperSight

Relevant to the thread I feel...

https://www.limerickleader.ie/news/home/525251/mobile-phone-video-taken-by-limerick-motorist-ran-off-the-road.html