Drivers on the phones: its getting scary!!

ED E

Clearly a member then, or related to one? (Hurrache, two posts while I was typing)

AGS have been spotted many many times driving/parking irresponsibly to use their local chipper/Dominos/Aldi etc.

For example they feckin love Off Beat Donuts, as they did Aussie BBQ before it closed
https://twitter.com/RiotNymia/status/962358639729238017/photo/1


Rathmines Gardai regularly breach 4 or 5 parking regs to get Dominos Pizza. Technically they're allowed, but it sends entirely the wrong message.

LeChienMefiant

Hurrache wrote: »

And you know they're on a coffee run how?

When they park illegally outside Nick's coffee in Ranelagh and queue up to get their coffee. Although they have recently ceased this practise. Westland row seems to have another favored coffee/snack spot.

07Lapierre

Tilikum17 wrote: »

I’ll tell you what’s also scary. Driving to work in the dark with gob****e cyclists with no lights whatsoever. Some lad this morning - no lights & earphones on.

I’m also a cyclist.

No excuse for no lights on bikes at this time of year. Clearly an idiot on a bike. Thank God you were not on your phone and were able to avoid what could have been yet another dead cyclist.... bravo 👏

Hurrache

ED E wrote: »

Clearly a member then, or related to one? (Hurrache, two posts while I was typing)

No, but a friend is in a specialist unit and I know how they work.

But regardless, I've no problem with them using a phone while driving. Using their phone while going about their duty and poor parking while getting lunch or whatever are not to be conflated with each other.

Thinkingaboutit

Grab All Association wrote: »

I challenge you to show at least 5 road fatalities be it driver, cyclist, or pedestrian caused by someone using a mobile phone in Ireland. Not speculation actual prosecution by the courts or determination by the coroners court into the cause of the accident.

Every single van not keep a straight/correct line has a driver on the phone. In respect of cars etc I've seen Facetiming, Instragram, email, etc. You seem to be denying that distracted driving causes accidents. It is a bizarre and arbitrary benchmark. Maybe 6, maybe 4 dead, maybe a child counts as half, a baby as one third, a miscarriage as two fifths.

Anyhow, why set the bar at deaths even? Everything from minor damage or shock to disability is relevant to the matter. Most of the lesser things never go near this country's back-up court/legal system.

Thinkingaboutit

Hurrache wrote: »

Fairly often, they'd often communicate with each other via phone, sharing photos of security footage, cars they think are dodgy etc asking colleagues if they know them or the occupants etc. They can communicate directly with each other using mobiles.



And you know they're on a coffee run how?

Like on Greenhills Road, sirens on and then parking in the forecourt of the petrol station to buy snacks (I got to there a little later).

Kaisr Sose

Macy0161 wrote: »

The use of camera's/ ANPR doesn't seem to be on the road safety agenda at all, unfortunately. It's all about more Gardai, which just increases the chances of randomly getting caught or stopped. Not enough gardai, according to themselves, the RSA etc, but still putting two or more at random tax and insurance checkpoints which could be done by ANPR...

ANPR is coming in 2019 courtesy of the Insurance Industry. I am not sure to what extent it will be deployed/used for.

Kaisr Sose

lawred2 wrote: »

Nice leap there.

Did I say it was right?

I argued that a dirty numberplate is not necessarily a safety issue.

By all account many people that engage in this do so because they want to be above detection when speeding or driving dangerously. That then becomes a road safety issue. No reason to have an obscure plate if you drive within the law and with respect to other road users.

LeChienMefiant

magicbastarder wrote: »

how much do the gardai need to use phones in the conduct of their business? i guess they could be ringing witnesses, etc., but how much garda to garda comms is done via phone, and how much done via dedicated radio?

Gardai used mobile exclusively before Tetra was available as it was the only secure network they had access to. I don't know to what degree Garda internal comms has switched to Tetra. I know that Gardai use GMail and WhatsApp for internal comms also.

Hurrache

Thinkingaboutit wrote: »

Like on Greenhills Road, sirens on and then parking in the forecourt of the petrol station to buy snacks (I got to there a little later).

As I said, you're conflating something completely unrelated with the fact they're allowed by the RTA to use their phone while on duty.

onmebike

Grab All Association wrote: »

E-cigarettes are banned on trains yet there’s no single case of anyone dying due to second hand exposure to vapour.

I want to see a linked prosecution of someone who caused a fatality between 1996 and 2018 whilst using a mobile phone in this country who was convicted and sentenced for it.

How many people would you like to see affected or killed by these examples before you think it's worthwhile asking people to stop?

LeChienMefiant

Hurrache wrote: »

As I said, you're conflating something completely unrelated with the fact they're allowed by the RTA to use their phone while on duty.

They should have handsfree in their cars. I see no justification otherwise.

Hurrache

[gross exaggeration]When the kidnappers pass a garda in the opposite direction unhindered with your kids in their boot because the garda in the car wasn't allowed to check out the photo of a screen grab from security footage that was sent to them by a colleague don't come crying to me!

ED E

LeChienMefiant wrote: »

They should have handsfree in their cars. I see no justification otherwise.

Private phones + shared vehicles would make the practicalities of that tricky.

A great solution would be require them to use Taximan style earpieces with their private phones.

Kaisr Sose

Hurrache wrote: »

[gross exaggeration]When the kidnappers pass a garda in the opposite direction unhindered with your kids in their boot because the garda in the car wasn't allowed to check out the photo of a screen grab from security footage that was sent to them by a colleague don't come crying to me!

I don’t disagree but in his day and age they should be able to receive all this information on an onboard device straight from central HQ. It’s not hard to share data these days...

They are so far behind tech wise and the criminals and ordinary jack and Janes benefit.

magicbastarder

or why don't they have a dash mounted phone - or tablet - dedicated to each car?

LaLa2004

Grab All Association wrote: »

I challenge you to show at least 5 road fatalities be it driver, cyclist, or pedestrian caused by someone using a mobile phone in Ireland. Not speculation actual prosecution by the courts or determination by the coroners court into the cause of the accident.

I fear for my children walking to school in the city. I see many drivers who are distracted by phones. The coroners court is the last place I want to be.

On a separate issue I have them warned not to instinctively cross the main road on a green man. Drivers turning left at this junction repeatedly turn on the red light/green man.

Hurrache

magicbastarder wrote: »

or why don't they have a dash mounted phone - or tablet - dedicated to each car?

Makes sense, they have this in the US a long time, but all cars here don't even have ANPR yet. You're still reliant on everything coming from dispatch though and the potential delay that comes with it. Would, or should, such a system allow direct communication between cars and gardai?

Police in the UK still use their personal mobile phones for the same reasons as they do here though.

LeChienMefiant

It's not appropriate for Gardai to be using WhatsApp (or personal phones) for operational purposes. For audit reasons if nothing else. The Disclosures Tribunal among other things have made this patently obvious.

Tar.Aldarion

Saw a dublin bus driver smoking recently, thought that was fairly dodgy.

CramCycle

Tar.Aldarion wrote: »

Saw a dublin bus driver smoking recently, thought that was fairly dodgy.

Wait till you hear about them pissing in bottles in the stairwells.

Effects

ED E wrote: »

Private phones + shared vehicles would make the practicalities of that tricky.

Bluetooth. Pretty simple solution. It's been around a while.

Tar.Aldarion

CramCycle wrote: »

Wait till you hear about them pissing in bottles in the stairwells.

Pretty impressive while driving!

Hurrache

Effects wrote: »

Bluetooth. Pretty simple solution. It's been around a while.

It's not practical when you move from vehicle to vehicle that is either used by many people, or you don't use regularly. You may have to synch each time which can be tedious, especially if the phone book is synched. Then there's only a finite number of devices a unit will synch with, 5 seems to be the average I've experienced, so you then have to mess around and delete a device first.

I'm sure there's a solution somewhere in which you can synch a radio to a bluetooth device so that their ear piece connects to both, but it doesn't get around the fact that phones are used for more than just talking over.

raspberrypi67

I've seen this so much now with drivers, phone stuck to the windscreen, talk about blatant, hands free ok!!
I see so much texting going on too, infact nearly every second or third car I care to glance at on the M50 I see people texting or phone to the ear ( van drivers especially ) or WATCHing things on their phone...

WHERE ARE THE POLICE...??? Probably breath testing!!!!lol

Deleted User wrote: »

I’ve seen two drivers in the last month looking at YouTube videos on their phones which where stuck to their windscreens. I’d love to be a traffic Garda for the day

steamsey

Obviously no one should be on their phone when they are in control of a motor vehicle. Using your phone when sitting stationery in traffic is one thing, and I'm not condoning it. But using the phone when actually moving / driving is pure cynicism. You are essentially saying f*ck everyone else - my phone call, message - whatever - is more important than everyone else'e personal safety and less importantly but also relevant is that it's two fingers up to how everyone else feels about being out on the roads - they don't care if they are making you nervous, or afraid of the roads.

It's a thoughtless act with potentially fatal consequences and I hold drivers who use their phones whilst driving in the lowest possible regard.

AGS have a lot to answer for. On my commute in and out of the city everyday I see dozens of drivers on their phones. The simplest tactic in the world is to have Guards on bikes checking this - if they were fining everyone with a phone in their hand they would pay for their own salary for that day in minutes. What I don't see every day are AGS - I just don't see them.

The roads on my route (D24 to City Centre) are becoming more dangerous because of the lack of AGS presence, certain people will do the right thing but many others will go as far as they can and at the moment, and on my route there's a ton of drivers taking the p*ss every single day.

What really frustrates me is the lack of control here. What can I do if I see a driver on the phone? I've said it to plenty of them but gave up because it's not worth the shouting matches - these drivers on their phones are very protective of their "right" to use their phone when they're driving.

On top of all this and on a more macro level - it points to major issues in society where people can't go 5 minutes without playing with their f*cking phone. We are addicted to absolute **** - Instagram, WhatsApp et al - all an absolute load of sh*t that contribute nothing to your life in real terms but consistently suck the life out of you.

xckjoo

LeChienMefiant wrote: »

It's not appropriate for Gardai to be using WhatsApp (or personal phones) for operational purposes. For audit reasons if nothing else. The Disclosures Tribunal among other things have made this patently obvious.

Ya. Seriously. WTF.

On a related note, what process does a Guard have to go through if they see someone on the phone while driving? Is it on the spot fines? How much paperwork comes from it? If you have to spend half an hour filling out forms every time you catch someone on the phone, I can see why they'd ignore it. Not that it would make it right but I see why they would.

LaLa2004

LaLa2004 wrote: »

I fear for my children walking to school in the city. I see many drivers who are distracted by phones. The coroners court is the last place I want to be.

On a separate issue I have them warned not to instinctively cross the main road on a green man. Drivers turning left at this junction repeatedly turn on the red light/green man.

We've one of these junctions right across from us very busy with pedestrians as its on route to a supermarket, even our dog knows not to move for a few seconds after the beeps for the green man.

I was crossing it coming back about a year ago no more so traffic was turning right coming from behind even after I waited the usual few seconds and got half way before a car passed in front driver on the phone, so close that without thinking I thumped it and the driver jammed on the breaks, I had my then 3 year old with me so you could guess my state of mind when he got out and asked what did I do that for. I could have done jail time that day had it not been for another motorist getting out to have a go at him and the fact my wee one was looking at all of it .

Blood still boils to think how close that was.

clickerquicklic

I decided to count the number of drivers on phones on the way home just on one stretch of road , I was running home from work from the bottom of Grace Park road to the junction at collins ave. I counted 34 drivers using mobile phones I only seen 2 until the traffic slowed down (it was hard to see as I was running along) the traffic was moving albeit slowly I think we have a major problem in this country now with mobile phone use.

ED E

Effects wrote: »

Bluetooth. Pretty simple solution. It's been around a while.

Yes, try pairing more than 4 handsets with your car kit.