Your experiences with the Gards over the years.

Had a fair few dealings. When I lost my phone and reported it for my insurance, and the woman behind the counter was brilliant. Was so nice and quick to deal with. When I had a rta claim against me 3 years after the accident happened, I went to the guards to request information about the incident as person claiming against me Had his car remove due to no tax or insurance. Guard told me it is Complete bullsh*the That this is happening and if I decide to go to court he would have no problem giving the report stating this man walked home an said he was fine....

My boyfriend is on the panel to be a guard so I'll have a very close working relationship with one hahaha

whisky_galore wrote: »

There are just two kinds of Guards; sound lads and complete arseh*les.

Nothing in between.

Female Gardaí?

razorblunt wrote: »

Female Gardaí?

Ages ago I overheard a fellow in town remark "There's one thing worse than a Garda...and that's a Bhean Garda".

Amused me something fierce, maybe this chap was the bloke?

I respect their authoritah

Generally unfavourable.

They have all the time in the world to camp the roads for speeders, but no time whatsoever to recover any of the items stolen from the family business over the years.

Latest example -
Digger stolen from the yard.
I call the local station, no answer.
I call the area station, no answer.
I call regional hq, am bollocked over the phone for not calling local........
Guard comes from hq to do the report.
Goes uncontactable.
Another guard comes from the local branch to do a report.
Case gets bounced aound 3 different stations and guardai, before finally settling somewhere.
This was 2 months ago. We're still waiting for them to finalise details with the insurance group.

I mean, what the literal ****. It couldn't be any more disorganised if they tried.

only ever had two negative experiences with them:

1: two weeks ago was driving along the motor way out of ovens towards cork 120km/h was pulled by a guard on a motorbike,

i overtook a slow moving blue fiat with L plates, went into the overtaking lane overtook them and pulled back into the travelling lane, saw the guard, flasshy lights and everything, waited for him to over take me, eventually figured he was pulling me over (ive never been pulled over in my life after over 10 years of driving)

rolled down the window he checked tax, insurance, NCT had a good gawk inside the car and at the tyres etc, asked for licence, finds nothing untoward,

him: ''you were flying along there for a while''
me: oh okay, i was under the speed limit though its still 120 yeah?
him: yeah it is, it changes further up to 100
me: yeah i know I was overtaking.
him: took you a while to pull in, and notice me.
me: yeah honestly its the first time ive even been pulled over, i didnt think it was me you had the lights on for me to be honest.
him: look ill let you off with a warning but slow down.
me: right thanks.
he then proceeds to let my licence fly off in the wind... because he didnt bother to take his gloves of and was trying to get it back into the plastic pouch thingi, got stuck on his motorbike thank Christ and i tried not to laugh my ass off at how like a carry on film it was.

(i should point there was no motion made with his hands when he ws apparently pulling me over and obviously i dont drive looking in the rear view mirror so clearly wouldnt have spotted him was it not for the lights eventually)

what the feck was he giving me a warning for like? i wasnt speeding.. was generally a very unpleasant guy gave me a serious dose of the creeps too.

second experience was about 8 or 9 years ago:

the travellers left three miniature (teasers) pony's off on the road outside my parents house..
i was heading out the front door to met my brother and sister in law for dinner, open the door to be greeted by three smiling faces. they are all straggley, wormy and clearly a bit starved. my parents have a large empty fenced in field where we used to keep cows and horses so wrangled them in there fed them gave them some water and food.

rang the RSPCA no answer, same as all the sanctuaries etc, so rang the local cop shop, closed (its the country what can you do). rang togher guards got onto a lad who said he'd ring the service to collect them it would be an hour or so, i said great their in a field at the back work away.

An hour came and went no sign, called back got onto a woman who said its nothing to do with them, she actually said
'' has there been a crime committed?' being around 19/20 i was like oh okay what do i do with them? let them back onto the road? she then proceed to berate me saying that if an accident happened i would be charged with endangerment due to letting them back on the road, then told me all about the time she had to go inform a mother of her kid being killed in a car accident did i was to be responsible for that? i literally almost shat myself. looking back she was clearly just demented but can you imaging saying that to someone...
then said id have to wait around for the collection as they were on private property and would need to give permission to have them collected, i kept trying to explain to her they wernt mine and had wandered in off the road she kept telling me they were my responsibility etc etc. i was bawling by the end of it.

in the end my dad who was on holiday had to sort it, they were picked up the next day and the garda's Sergeant apologised for the inconvenience.

she claimed she thought it was a prank the whole time... what a bitch.

only other experiences i have had are the normal ones checkpoints, being out, work related stuff and ive never had a problem i reckon they do a thankless job and are in general underpaid.

Id hedge my bets that the vast majority of people who said that the guards were always pleasant did not grow up in a working class area as a young male.

I had to deal with them after a car accident, when I wanted forms stamped and once when I was called as a witness and I was treated very respectfully and made to feel at ease. I can't say I've ever had a bad experience with them.

Sebastian Dangerfield wrote: »

From my experience, a lot of them tend to start interactions with a level of aggression that mean youre either intimidated or respond in a similarly agressive fashion, when theres no need for it.

I was stopped at a checkpoint a few weeks back, they checked all my discs were in order and waved me on. 5 mins down the road a garda van came shooting up behind me, lights and sirens on full, so i pulled over, curious and nervous as to why. One garda came around the passenger side of my car to check the discs again, the other one came up the drivers side foaming at the mouth, asking why I turned away from a check point. I explained where Id come from and described the guard who waved me on. He eventually snarled at me "must have been another car the same as yours" and stormed off without so much as a thanks or sorry.

My experience in the uk is that theyll address you as sir, speak in a calm tone and plainly explain why theyre talking to you, so long as you show them the same courtesy. Here most of them start off like youve already broken the law, theres no need for it

Would you like them to address every scum that will spit in their face Sir! as well ? specially in smaller towns where they might know every second dodgy one and cant do anything since good old judge will give another 50th chance to most scum to walk free.

Anything to do with getting forms signed or stamped was 100% great.

I had a really, really negative experiance with one garda who pulled us over for doing nothing. No speeding, tax and insurance and NCT up to date and no alcohol drunk. The man who pulled us over spent his time yelling at how we cut him off half a mile down the road and he wasn't going to let us get away with it-he was like a man possessed and I have never felt so intimidated by his aggression. Also claimed his passengers had whiplash and that we'd be up in court by the end of the week for serious traffic offences. Never followed up at all but it has tainted my view of the force, even though I'm generally a law and order type citizen.

scamalert wrote: »

Would you like them to address every scum that will spit in their face Sir! as well ? specially in smaller towns where they might know every second dodgy one and cant do anything since good old judge will give another 50th chance to most scum to walk free.

So is that what we should expect from our tax payer funded police service - everyone treated like the worst possible element of society at the first opportunity?

I have bad days in work too, it doesnt mean I get to take it out on everyone else I encounter

Generally it's been very good and I also know people in the Guards and nice people. In general it's just being going in getting forms stamped for passport and once I was stopped at a drink driving checkpoint and I didn't have my licence and was asked to produce it the next day which I did and all very decent prefessional people who I dealt with.

One and only bad one was when I was involved in a car accident as a passenger. My Dad was driving and a taxi ploughed into us... a squad car with 4 Guards was about a minute behind the crash but they were not local Gardai but were very nice and very helpful and made everyone feel at ease and calm and one guy took charge and noted all the details and spoke to the drivers etc. 5 minutes later a van arrived with lights on with 2 more Guards and a big lump of a fella got out and started interfering. Obviously not happy to see the other four fellas dealing with it as him and his buddy were the ones responding to the 999. He proceeded to berate my Dad who was clearly shook, sitting on the car bonnet and has a heart condition... bullying him into trying to make a confession that it was his fault, right up in his face, a man in his 50's small of stature and the 6'4 giant of a cop leaning down face to face... I was in shock myself and all common sense went out the window and I went for him... luckily one of the others stepped in between us before anything serious could be said or done and indeed one of his own colleagues actually pulled him away and gave him a talking to.. an absolute arsehole. Eventually he calmed down and came over and apparently after finding out where we lived asked did we know a certain colleague of his which we did he was a neighbor and lived opposite... he was very apologetic at this point and even offered me a lift to work in the van which was a good bit out of their way. I often wonder would we have got the apology if we didn't live in an area with many Guards as neighbors and know his mate for years.... Not a nice experience on top of the traumatic car crash itself...

On the whole though I think it's like life itself if you are polite and courteous you generally receive the same back but every profession has it's percentage of arseholes....Just sometimes worth noting that if you encounter one that you don't let it blind your view of them as a whole.