Catching someone who smashed your car, whats the chances?

HelterSkelter

Padraig Mor wrote:

Agreed; they really couldn't give a flying fuck (what exactly do Gardai do?). Similar story with my GF. Her parked car was hit while at work. Several witnesses got reg no. of jeep that hit her but the guard in question did absolutely nothing. She only got in contact when I wrote a letter of complaint to the local Superintendent; even with that though she came up with a load of cock and bull to avoid doing anything about it. GF eventually paid for repairs herself.

Same happened me,drunk driver hit my car parked outside my house. Neighbour got the reg. I got onto the MIBI, they required the car reg and name & address of the person driving. Guards would not give me that info but gave it to the MIBI who then covered the cost of repairing my car. The guard told me they were going to do her for driving with no tax & insurance.

bungeecork

pontovic wrote:

...but that point can't really be argued when we have to wait up to 14 months to take our driving test...

Look, a lot of people break the law these day. Have you ever jay-walked, downloaded copyright music, drifted over the speed limit etc. Most everyone is guilty of something.

And a lot of people justify it. Jay-walk? - sure we're miles away from the traffic lights. Copyrighted music? - Sure couldn't I tape it off the radio? Break the speed limit? - but sure the limit is way too low on this road and anyway I have ABS etc.

Now it's just plain bad luck to be side-swiped. But if you sign up for a license and agree to follow the requirements for that license, and then you go back on that contract and drive on your own - you might feel the need to justify your decision by inventing your own reasons (I'm a good driver, the queue is too long for a driving test etc.). But you're not actually justifying your decision, you're just making yourself feel better about breaking the law.

kluivert

BungeeCork

Seriously this is besides the point.... If he left out the fact that he was a provisional license holder you would be none the wise and there would be less of a rant.

Anyone who gets into a car has a responsiblility to themselves and other roadusers for the safety of everyone concerned. This includes damage to other users property where they are 18yrs or 88yrs old. Learning or Experienced. No one can be 100% perfect and the odd accident does happen.

But when it does happen its important that people live up to their responsibility and accept the consequence of doing so. A Contract is formed by written or oral expression or by action. The action of getting into the car is contract, if you want to call it that.

When that person got side swiped it was the responsibility of the person who done it to stop give his/her details over and get on with it. Whether or not the gentleman was a learner driver or not has nothing got to do with what happened.

For agruments stake ok, say there was a qualified driver in the car with him and the car still got side swiped what difference is there.

Please start another thread about this if you feel so strongly about it.

bungeecork

I don't feel strongly about it at all kluivert. As I said in an earlier post in this thread, good luck to you. May I add to that... relax!

kluivert

LOL... Sorry bungeecork...i get carried away at times

I think the problem with this country is one of attitude and not driver skill. When you see people in cars do silly things with their lives and the lives of others youquestion whats going through their head.

Been reading through the posts and its good to hear that some people have been able to catch the feckers who think they can up and run. Well done to them.

There's no sign of this lad being caught but the gf is getting the car fixed on sunday, it ll be back on the road as good as new, so its probably time to move on.

Its good to see that there's people out there who still give damn about these things, cheers.

pontovic

I don't jay walk, I cross over at a zebra crossing or signalled corssing, and I don' t download copyrighted music anymore

But as for the argument of provisional licence holders not being allowed to drive, fair enough, if I had a weeks experience and about 10 miles under my belt driving, it would have been silly to drive in the city center, but with the amount of driving I had done up to the point of that accident, I felt I had enough responsibility and experience to drive on that day. At that stage, I 'knew' how to drive in a safe manner. Its not that hard to do.
Its very easy for people to point the finger sometimes, but you must remember that you were all in the same position as I was at one stage or another. You can't tell me you didn't drive on your own on a provisional at some stage ?

bungeecork

pontovic wrote:

You can't tell me you didn't drive on your own on a provisional at some stage ?

Mea culpa. I used to swap cars around in our driveway whenever someone blocked in needed to leave, that involved reversing out onto the road. We live at the end of a cul-de-sac though, wasn't like I was reversing onto the M50. And I did feel that I had proficient/sufficient experience at the time....:D

Irish-trucker

bungeecork wrote:

Sorry Dude, but I can't let this one slip by. What do you have against foreign truck drivers? International driving is part of the nature of trucking, isn't it? I love spotting a truck on the continent with "O'Sheas Transport - Tralee" or similar painted on the sides.

Saying he was most likely a foreigner is like saying he was most likely a Sinn Fein supporter. Kinda silly, yeah?

Lads ,

Right i realise that my original post sounded as if i did'nt like foreign drivers working in ireland , which i realise was wrong ,i dont .
But generally some hauliers , employ cheap foreign drivers ,and some would not be the best of the bunch .
And that the view and quality of truck drivers in general in my opinion ,was being brought down.
I'm not saying Either that there is not a few bad apples in among irish truck drivers too .
That's all i wanted to say in my original post , which i did'nt do - sorry if offence was caused to anyone .
I like spotting foreign company's trucks from holland/france here myself .

Hope this clears things up

TempestSabre

bungeecork wrote:

But they get crap pay and are only promoted on a politicians nod so I guess we get what we deserve. I think you're lucky she wasn't a politician or other "garda connected" individual, even your garda friend would have been slow to act then.

Exactly why theres such a lack of enforcement of a whole range of crimes. If you are not willing to do your job then quit. End of. Crap pay? You don't join the guards to be a millionaire. Your a public servent. If you not happy with that then leave. But don't make excuses for not doing your job.

I wish they'd spent the money building that sinking tunnel on the guards myself. Because its a hard job. But that doesn't excuse that kinda attitude.