Garda Police unit high speed chases, anyone ever been killed?

Lights and Sirens don't give an entitlement to break the rules of the road, at red lights they should proceed with caution so i guess they could be charged for Death by dangerous driving if it was proven the garda car was being driven dangerously.

I think a couple of years ago two there was some deaths on the stillorglin dual carriageway as a result of a pursuit

I don't recall any incidents where members of the public were killed. However about 20 years ago Gardai Michael Padden and Tony Tighe were killed when their car (which was probably stationary or nearly so) was rammed at high speed by a car being chased by other Garda vehicles.

There was this case from nearly 20 years ago now.

Garda driver was responding to a call involving youths acting suspiciously around parked cars.

I wouldn’t say a van, in a residential area doing 80 in a 50 is safe. Vans have different handling characteristics to cars…. Slower breaking, not nearly as manoeuvrable, prone to tipping if empty and involved in an accident at speed….even clipping a kerb at 40 and it’s trouble.

I’ve only driven vans maybe a dozen times and not for a number of years but always felt while out driving them, errors and certainly errors with speed weren’t situations you didn’t want to end up in.

I believe, but am open to correction, that if a guard was shown to have not taken due care and attention to the safety of others while engaged in a chase that required them to go outside the normal rules of the road they could be prosecuted. Eg. they are permitted to use their training to peruse a suspect however must also be conscious of potential dangers to others and moderate their driving accordingly. I would not have huge confidence that charges would be brought though.

Correct. It was a balls up of epic proportions, the Garda car wasn't even going to the correct address.

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/garda-hysterical-after-patrol-car-killed-woman-26393566.html

Not long ago a garda was convicted of dangerous driving causing death. I believe he knocked down an elderly deaf lady en route to a robbery.

In the past month , I’ve seen eight Garda motorbikers escorting a gang of VIP visitors in fancy minibuses, and four Garda bikers escorting the Ireland team bus heading to Lansdowne.

The thought struck me that the arrangements were designed more about creating a buzz for the lads on the bikes than about providing safe passage.

why can’t they just leave earlier like the rest of us?

Like I said, why can't they leave earlier? Why don't they travel around 3-4pm for an evening match, avoiding the rush hour, and do their final meal and other preparations at the ground? I doesn't seem like a great use of very limited Garda resources to be facilitating last minute travel for a private event.

Loads of people been killed in this manner but it has all been swept under the rug by the Narda press office and the families given big payouts to stay quiet*

*May contain traces of truth

Re: the reason bikes are used for escorts is it allows them better navigation to stop traffic. Allows them to zoom ahead through traffic to make way, etc. You know they're right fancy if there's a hape of Garda cars doing the escort!

Yep, if you’re going to do an escort like this, I can see that the bikes make sense. The real question is whether it makes any sense to use scarce Garda resources to save a bit of time for a gang of overpaid lads to kick a ball around a field.

Yes, I’m aware that the organisers pay Gardai for resources used at such events. I’d wonder if the Garda escorts are included, as these payments are normally meant to cover the Garda resources in and around the ground. But even if they are included, that doesn’t mean it is still a good use of scarce resources. Garda resources shouldn’t be just available to the highest bidder, or whoever can afford to pay. There should be some public interest or public safety test to make sure that it really makes sense to allocate these resources. I’d imagine that the Gardai involved may be quite happy, with the bit of overtime and the bit of a buzz from the nature of the job, but again, that doesn’t mean it is a good idea.

Edit:

This extract from Garda FOI requests would suggest that ‘traffic control’ duties are NOT charged to the organisers.

That would assume that this is the only possible overtime requirement at that time, which is by no means certain. But even ignoring the overtime issue, it does mean that these bikes (a limited resource) are unavailable for use for other services, like enforcing traffic law. It also creates a safety issue for both the officers themselves and for bystanders, by driving at speed through heavily populated areas, possibly causing other road users to panic in response to the lights and sirens. It just all seems so unnecessary, for a scheduled football match.

There’s also also a reciprocal arrangement with other countries. It’s really not a big deal.

If they were absolutely needed elsewhere, they’d be elsewhere

Football teams aren’t countries. This isn’t a reciprocal diplomatic arrangement with another country. It is a courtesy to organisations running sports events, to make it easier for a tiny number of participants to get around.

If it’s not a big deal, the organisers will have no difficulty in making other arrangements.

”no big deal” = not a big deal to me, and to 99.99% of people. You care about it, and that’s fine, but surely you realise the vast, vast majority don’t?

It is a diplomatic arrangement btw. If Ireland stopped doing it for opposing teams, it would become a bigger issue. They won’t though. Because a) they’re happy to receive the same treatment elsewhere and b) they know the vast, vast majority of people don’t mind it happening here

its not just to give the biker gards a buzz,there'd be a high element of security...no escort,the coach has to stop for traffic lights,other traffic etc,coach gets surrounded by fans/rival fans and at best is late to the grounds...so keep them moving

The best solution for this is for them to get to the ground early, 3-4 hours before kick-off, to avoid any rush of fans.

Yes, I do realise that, but the discussion has to start somewhere. So let's start it here. If we never did this before, and the FAI came knocking and said 'we want take four or six Gardai (which is probably half of the motorbike cops on duty in the city at any one time) so we can get the coach quickly through traffic, breaking lights and all that', would anyone think it is a good idea?

Don't threaten me with a good time though. If opposing teams stopped doing it, then people in their cities would have more police resources available for actual police work.

Baba Yaga got the main reason right, to keep the flow going so the "famous people" won't get swamped by fans. If fans knew there would be no escort, they'd be causing traffic/safety issues trying to get at them. Fans are idiots and will step out in front of traffic just to get closer.

Saw a team bus travelling for a match 2 weeks ago with Garda escort. Dont imagine there would be too many fans surrounding bus in March during the league