Garda Car driving in wrong direction in fast lane?!?

TheNog · 26-12-2008 04:36AM

It is absolutely ridiculous for a Garda car to be driven the wrong way down a Motorway/dual carraigeway. It doesn't matter how serious the call. The OP is right, the proper way to do it would have been to travell to the next bridge and approach the scene from the usual route, all the while doing a rolling road block and gradually bringing traffic to a stop before the scene. Then and only then could other ES vehicles travel down the wrong way of the road

Esel · 26-12-2008 04:59AM

If they had to do it, I would think it would be a lot safer to drive in the hard shoulder...

DublinWriter · 26-12-2008 09:59AM

Very good article in the SBP about six months ago detailing the shockingly low percentage of members of AGS that have actually done the in-service Advanced Driving Course.

Most drive around on what's known as "Chief's Permission", which is basically their line Chief Superintendant's written permission to drive an ES vehicle on nothing more than a full driving license.

I think the bigger problem here is the lack of resources given to AGS to train members.

antoinolachtnai · 02-01-2009 03:49PM

I was on the Drumcondra road one day (in 2008) going north towards the airport. It was near the Cat and Cage as I recall. A car came towards me, driving south. It was in the northbound bus lane, i.e., in the outside lane on the wrong side of the road. It then dodged across traffic to its own side of the road. It seemed to have blue flashers on it, but I'm not quite certain - everything happened pretty quickly. It was not a make or colour car that you would expect to see in Garda service (but that is certainly not to say it wasn't an official vehicle). As it happened, the traffic was very slow and the whole thing was actually not as dangerous as it sounded.

But this was certainly a pretty dangerous thing to do. The driver would have had no way of knowing what traffic conditions were like at the other end of the bus lane when he entered it.

There may have been a very good reason for what was done.

I did ring the incident in on 112 at the time.

monument · 02-01-2009 04:03PM

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

It was not a make or colour car that you would expect to see in Garda service (but that is certainly not to say it wasn't an official vehicle).

I used to think the same for a while, but from observations the use of different makes for unmarked cars seams to have expanded in recent years.

Garda Car driving in wrong direction in fast lane?!?

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