reported a drunk driver but the gardai did nothing...

vibe666

picked up the missus last night after late night shopping in blanch and on the way home we noticed a car in front of us driving very erratically and quite dangerously after we passed through DunShaughlin.

we followed at a safe distance for a while, but it became very obvious from the way he was driving that there was something very wrong with him, he was weaving left and right over the middle line in the road and then right over on the hard shoulder too, speeding up then slowing down all the time and driving dangerously close to the car in front and oncoming traffic.

as we approached the Tara roadworks it became very obvious he was off his face either on drink or drugs (or both) so I got the g/f to call the Gardai in Navan so they could stop him. we gave a description of the car and the number plate and they promised to send someone right out.

there was still no sign of them when we got to the first few houses on the way into Navan so we called again with an updated position and they promised someone was on the way.

as we came towards the patrol station on the main road opposite the river a Garda car pulled out of the garage about 6 cars in front of us (before he would have been in a position to see the car and came towards us on the other side of the road.

i flashed my lights and waved at them pointing to the golf, assuming these were the people they had sent out, but from the look of them they didn't seem to be looking for anyone at all and totally blanked me and kept driving.

we decided to keep following him through Navan and see if the Garda turned round, but they didn't so we kept going and followed him. we stopped at one of the sets of lights and he tried to cut up a lorry and almost hit it. stopped behind him I could see his face in his rear view and wing mirrors and he was totally off his face twisted drunk/drugged.

we kept following him round expecting the cops to jump out at any minute, but they didn't.

as we went past woodies on the far side of town he obviously decided he'd had enough and pulled over to the side of the road, so we went past a few hundred yards and turned round once we were out of sight (not that he would have noticed anyway) and called the station again and told them that he had stopped and that they just had to send someone out to pick him up.

we waited to see what would happen, but after 10 minutes nobody had come and yer man decided to keep on driving.

having lost faith in the ability of the law to do it's job we decided we'd just go home and leave them to it. I took a slight detour past the Garda station figuring that maybe they were just low on resources, but to my surprise there were 5 marked cars and a transit and that every single car park space in the place was full.

I'm disappointed in myself that I didn't do more (I'd contemplated dragging him out of his motor and pasting him, but then I'd have been the bad guy and probably ended up in court), but I'm even more disappointed that the Gardai who's job it is to do this kind of thing got an almost guaranteed conviction handed to them on a plate and did nothing.

PinewoodD

Hey im not sticking up for the guards ,

But just cause there was cars parked outside doesnt mean that they had the gardai to take them out to the call...

Very often there is only one patrol car covering the district , and the time you called the could've been at a call which was 20 or thirty minutes away..

At the same time yes there is the possibilty that they were all sitting inside drinking tea but doubtful..

The patrol car ya saw leaving garage could've been any patrol car not necessarily from navan and prob didnt have a clue what ya were flashing them about ...

Just sayin dont always think the worst of them

Sherifu

Reads pretty bad. Fair play for calling them anyway OP.

vibe666

I go past the station regularly, and that's the busiest I think I've ever seen it in my 2 years living in Navan.

part of me feels bad for being a grass and calling them in the first place, but I kept thinking what if my girlfriend (or anyone else's) was pulling out of a side street with this eejit coming at them or kids were crossing the road or something.

another part of me feels bad for not dragging him out of his car myself when he pulled over, but there's a good chance that one or other of us could have come out of that very badly and there's always consequences for that kind of thing. I'm a difficult person to get riled up, but once I go I really go and I could see myself either taking things far too far or opening his door and getting a knife in the guts for my trouble.

that's always been part of my problem though, half hero half coward and all indecisive with it. not a great combination.

Rowley Birkin QC

Garda Ombudsman.

Really think that this is the kind of thing the ombudsman is there for.

At least I would ring and ask to speak to a Seargent just to ask why nothing was done.

whippet

about 12 months ago I came across a similar senario ... I call the guards, and followed the car which happened to pull in to a car park across the road from the pub I was going into for a jar. The driver in question fell of his car and into the chinese takeaway.

I called the guards again and let them know the score, the station is beside the boozer were I was, so I decided to stand outside for a smoke and a few minutes later two guards walked out stood out of view of the car in question, waited for the guy to come out of the chinese and as soon as he started his engine got him to blow in the bag.

With a sense of satisfaction I went back in for my pint and got a call a few minutes later from the station to thank me and to say that the guy was under arrest.

Mena

vibe666 wrote: »

half hero half coward and all indecisive with it. not a great combination.

Like 98% of the earths population then to be fair.

biko

Fair play OP for trying to do something about it.

Fey!

Unfortunately, it may come down to the availability of drivers on the shift.

Did you ring the station direct, or 999? I'm open to correction, but I think that 999 calls are far more likely to get a response.

PinewoodD

ya exactly ,

fair play to ya for ringing in . My Bro, Sis and Mam were seriously injured a few years ago when a drunk driver driving a transit with bull bars on the front came straight across the road and into the front of them..

Its ridiculous that people still drink and drive and in the middle of the day as well ...

vibe666

bigkev49 wrote: »

Garda Ombudsman.

Really think that this is the kind of thing the ombudsman is there for.

At least I would ring and ask to speak to a Seargent just to ask why nothing was done.

my girlfriend gave them my number when she first called, so they should have a record of it and it's a bill phone so they could easily find out who I am. I just don't want to make a complaint and find myself getting pulled over every time they see me.

shopping some feckless eejit who's not got the sense to not get in his car when he's bladdered is one thing, but shopping the gardai for not following up on it is another thing entirely and maybe I'm just being alarmist about it, but that kind of thing could possibly end very badly.

PinewoodD

nope 999 calls dont get a quicker response cause there just filtered when the caller receives them in the communications room.....

vibe666

we rang 999 and asked to be transferred to the navan garda station.

Anan1

vibe666 wrote: »

I go past the station regularly, and that's the busiest I think I've ever seen it in my 2 years living in Navan.

part of me feels bad for being a grass and calling them in the first place, but I kept thinking what if my girlfriend (or anyone else's) was pulling out of a side street with this eejit coming at them or kids were crossing the road or something.

another part of me feels bad for not dragging him out of his car myself when he pulled over, but there's a good chance that one or other of us could have come out of that very badly and there's always consequences for that kind of thing. I'm a difficult person to get riled up, but once I go I really go and I could see myself either taking things far too far or opening his door and getting a knife in the guts for my trouble.

that's always been part of my problem though, half hero half coward and all indecisive with it. not a great combination.

If it's any help, I think you did the right thing. Any of the other options open to you, from doing nothing to confronting him, would have been wrong in one way or another. It's just a shame the Guards didn't act as responsibly as you did - i'd like to think they have a good excuse.

dubman25

the guards would be quick enough to stop you for tax though wouldnt they:rolleyes:thats the only power they have anyway:cool:

WHITE_P

Stange thing about the gardai in Navan, sometimes they seem very efficient at dealing with problems, and other times they just don't seem to be bothered.

Last Friday morning at about 3:00AM two little scumbags from the neighbouring estate, tried to steal one of my neighbours cars, anyway I rang them and two cars turned up within minutes, one marked, the other unmarked, and while they didn't catch them in the act, they found them and brougth them back to the seen. I had to identify them there and then which i wasn't too happy about as one of them would know me to see and the other is his older brother who's not that long back in Navan after a spell in the joy.
Anyway I would say the guards were on the ball here.

However last year we had a bunch of lads from the local senior rugby club living accross the road from us and they made our lives miserable. Partying, anti social behaviour, and regular drink driving in the estate. With regard to this problem which went on for almost a year, the guards didn't seem to want to know, no matter how many of the neighbours complained. Part of the problem for about six months was that one of the lads involved was the son of a local garda. The final incident was just after they won the Towns cup and went on a major bender, the party started accross the road from me at 5:00Am on the monday morning with car horns and stereo's going full belt (1st call to the station), then a row broke out, in the house (2nd call), and finally one of them falls out of the house shouting about how he is driving back to Dublin, (3rd call). Immediately after this call one of them comes out and tells him the guards are on the way, this dosen't stop him trying to drive away, and eventually he drives up the road and would have crashed into the garda car if it had turned onto our road, he swerved into a garden and jumped out of the car. Anyway the guards came down and I went out to them because I was so p!ssed off about the whole thing, this is like 6:30AM. When I mention the drink driving and point your man out to them, they said they would have to have witnessed it themselves. Another neighbour even showed them video of the whole thing. Nothing happen, and the only way we got any piece was to treaten the rugby club that we would object to their bar licence if it didn't stop.

Nightwish

I was a passenger in my mothers car a few years ago and we came across a car driving dangerously on the Callan by-pass in Kilkenny. The motorist was all over the road and speeding up on short straights and taking bends at 10 mph. I rang the garda station and they said they'd get someone out. The whole way into KK, there was no sign of them. We got into KK and still no sign of them. We followed him a bit into town and still no sign. I still cannot understand how they didnt take this seriously. Its such a dangerous thing to do and its one message the cops hammer home every weekend. In this instance they were given 20 minutes notice that the guy/gal was heading in the Callan road of Kilkenny, and still didnt not do anything.

Scottie99

Had a similar situation last week with Navan station concerning a drunk driver. They are either not interested or under resourced:mad:

ninty9er

Scottie99 wrote: »

Had a similar situation last week with Navan station concerning a drunk driver. They are either not interested or under resourced:mad:

Do you guys *know* the Gardaí did nothing, or are you working on the assumption that was the case because they didn't ring back.

I reported once and they rang back saying the reg didn't match the description of the car. Cartell.ie said otherwise.

Some Gardaí are workshy and some are just working off old info (i.e may have already been on the way towards the original sighting)

vibe666

the whole episode probably took 25-30 minutes and we called the gardai 4 times to update them to where he was, at one point he was about 200 yards away from the garda station (which was still chock full of cars) and then he stopped for 10 minutes about 1/4 of a mile from the garda station (again with a call to them to inform them of his exact location) and we watched him the whole time to see if they were going to do anything and they did nothing.

they had the car description and reg no. but as has already been said, if they didn't witness him doing it, it never happened and they can do nothing. they needed to catch him in the act, but it seems despite all the publicity in the media about all the priorities of reducing road deaths they really don't give two sh1ts about it.

nmacc

ninty9er wrote: »

Do you guys *know* the Gardaí did nothing, or are you working on the assumption that was the case because they didn't ring back

Unfortunately some times it's possible to be certain that they've done nothing about it. Some years ago we had bouts of antisocial behaviour in our area and repeated calls were made to the Gardat without apparent effect. One of the neighbours was a security guard and posessed a scanner and was acquainted with the details of the area and district frequencies. After repeated no-shows he got so frustrated that he started to monitor the Garda channels and was able to note how many times the calls were actually passed to the cars. I regret to say it was a rare ocurrance.

mcmc

I have lost all faith in the garda.
About a year ago there was at least 25 scummers outside my back gate. I live in poppintree btw. These f**kers were trying to kick in my back gate and fighting with each other. I rang the garda about 5 times and the final responce was "its a Saturday night, we are busy".

Fair enough, but i have a young child and i know if i had of went out to them i would be a dead man walking.

Sorry for the off topic but IMO garda= good for nothing!!

Marcus.Aurelius

I haven't read anywhere of any proof that the Gardaí did not attend because they didn't care.

Armies of drunks pouring out of the pubs and causing trouble, hundreds of members on checkpoints to detect drunk drivers, hundreds of cars stuck on calls and public order duty, it doesn't leave much free for other problems.

Take it up with the TDs and officers, not the rank and file by whinging to the Ombudsman, who has authority to strip ordinary members of pensions, irrespective of years served. That's cowardly.

Whine to the people who give the resources, the higher officers and the TDs.

mcmc

Marcus.Aurelius wrote: »

Whine to the people who give the resources, the higher officers and the TDs.

Yeah and you might get something happening in a year or 2. What about right now?

vibe666

sorry Marcus but that's just plain bullsh!t.

I drove past the garda station at around 8pm, 5 minutes after giving up on them coming to arrest the guy and the place was jammed to the gills with cars, both private and police.

i called them repeatedly and none of them could even bother their asses to drive a few hundred yards down the road for an easy arrest and potentially save some lives.

surely if they even gave a little bit of a damn a couple of them could have jumped into one of the several dozen cars in the car park and came and arrested the guy and put him off the road?

IanCurtis

what a snitch

peasant

IanCurtis wrote: »

what a snitch

care to elaborate as to the "snitching" element?

Del2005

I was driving to Enniskillen a while back and going through a town. I see 2 Gardai doing a speed check, didn't bother me I wasn't speeding. Car coming the other way with no lights on and the two Gardai just stood laughing. Only issue was this was late at night and the street lights stopped right after the Gardai.

They could at least have stopped the car and told them to turn their lights on(and maybe get a DUI) but they appeared to be more worried about getting speeding cars, there wheren't any other cars on the road, then getting someone to be seen on dark country roads.

Having said that when a scumbag tried to steal my car they where on the ball and caught him in the act.

Capri

Coming down the Swords Rd behind a 'drunk' driver, Garda Traffic jeep in the traffic going the other way. Told him about the 'drunk' in the car in front of me. " I'll radio it in" he says, and continues on ( to his lunch ? ).
The ordinary 'Plod' doesn't want to get their hands dirty dealing with 'real' criminals, when they gan get a 'clean' collar booking the motorist for an 'easy' crime !

bwardrop

vibe666 wrote: »

i called them repeatedly and none of them could even bother their asses to drive a few hundred yards down the road for an easy arrest and potentially save some lives.

I think the whole story does sound terrible, but I don't think you can really argue the above statement. How do you know they were being lazy? Could it be that they were all busy with something else - perhaps some drunk kicking off in the station, processing people that they just arrested, breaking bad news to a family, getting ready for a raid etc etc. There are plenty of reasons that might explain why they didn't respond. It is likely that none of them will wash with some people on here as there seems to be a little bit of Gardai bashing going on, but nonetheless, unless you walked in and saw them all sitting on their arses twiddling their thumbs then you can't really make the above assumption.

bwardrop

Marcus.Aurelius wrote: »

I haven't read anywhere of any proof that the Gardaí did not attend because they didn't care.

Armies of drunks pouring out of the pubs and causing trouble, hundreds of members on checkpoints to detect drunk drivers, hundreds of cars stuck on calls and public order duty, it doesn't leave much free for other problems.

Meant to multi-quote that into previous post - I agree with this.