"Traffic Blues" TV on RTE: Lady prov licence, 5 kids not strapped in.

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DeeFox

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This programme is currently running on Sunday evenings at 8.30pm. It follows the traffic Corp. and shows various situations they have to deal with - I think it is very interesting and balanced.
However, I was watching it last night and it showed a woman being pulled over for poor driving. She was on a provisional licence and the person with her didn't have a full licence either.

She had five children in the back seat - none of which were wearing seat belts and at least two of which should have been in a child safety seat according to the Guard.

She was given an €80 fine and two penalty points and was allowed to drive away.

I thought this was far too lenient - what do others think?
 
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Re: Traffic Blues on RTE

Totally agree with you. I couldnt believe he let the woman drive away with the 5 children still in the back of the car with no seatbelts.

It was the same two weeks ago where two young women crossed 6 lanes on the M50 by foot as their can had run out of pertol in heavy rain to find a pertol station. I wonder if this was two young men would they have been as easy on them ??? :rolleyes:
 
Re: Traffic Blues on RTE

+1 Would have looked great if that car crashed 5 minutes down the road.
 
Re: Traffic Blues on RTE

Agree.

Leniency seems to be the theme of the programme. If the reason the Garda are involved in the programme is to show that they take road safety seriously, then sadly they have failed miserably. I think the programme will encourage more people to break the law as they can see that even on front of the cameras, the Gardai are not willing to tackle the problem.

There is no way the woman in the car with the kids should have been allowed drive away. Should have been made to park up, make alternative arrangements to get the kids home and wait for a licensed driver to drive the car - and should have been hit with more than an €80 fine.

A couple of weeks ago, they stopped a motorcyclist with no insurance and allowed him to drive off with only a warning!!! And the guy with the overloaded truck was also allowed to drive off.
 
Re: Traffic Blues on RTE

its just garda propagnda....the guards get an easy ride in this series,they know how to act whe the camera is running.....pity rte could,nt do something better with our licence money,no wonder they are going broke!
 
It should not be up to an individual guard as to whom is breaking the law or not!
They are there to IMPLEMENT the law not DETERMINE it!

Thats what the law makers are for,the guards are law enforcers so in effect they did not do their job,the job which we are paying them to do.

By them choosing whether or not to enforce the law gives them way too much power and absolute power leads to .....

On another note on the news tonight a 25 yr old guard has been accused of making false statements,.

This is how Guards use their position to their own advantage,and my belief is that as long as they have the power to charge someone or not they will contuinue to do so.

Finally my sister had to have passport applications signed for her 3 children tonight and there were 3..yes 3 guards there all signing these forms.
Where are the reserve guards?

Why are they not doing this type of work?

Why are we paying guards to enforce laws and yet they stand behind counters signing forms when any idiot could do it.:confused:
 
thedaras said:
It should not be up to an individual guard as to whom is breaking the law or not!
They are there to IMPLEMENT the law not DETERMINE it!

Thats what the law makers are for,the guards are law enforcers so in effect they did not do their job,the job which we are paying them to do.

By them choosing whether or not to enforce the law gives them way too much power and absolute power leads to .....

On another note on the news tonight a 25 yr old guard has been accused of making false statements,.

This is how Guards use their position to their own advantage,and my belief is that as long as they have the power to charge someone or not they will contuinue to do so.

Finally my sister had to have passport applications signed for her 3 children tonight and there were 3..yes 3 guards there all signing these forms.
Where are the reserve guards?

Why are they not doing this type of work?

Why are we paying guards to enforce laws and yet they stand behind counters signing forms when any idiot could do it.:confused:
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Well any idiot can't do it as I presume it has to be signed by an actual Guard. I'm sure they are not spending the whole day signing forms, but there is plenty of paperwork to be done I would imagine.
I do think it is right that they show leniency at times and common sense otherwise we may need to turn to robocop.
 
MrMan said:
Well any idiot can't do it as I presume it has to be signed by an actual Guard. I'm sure they are not spending the whole day signing forms, but there is plenty of paperwork to be done I would imagine.
I
do think it is right that they show leniency at times and common sense otherwise we may need to turn to robocop.
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So you think the leniency shown on the RTE programme should be allowed?
Five kids not strapped in ,in a car and the driver is allowed to contuinue on,thats not leniency .....thats stupidity.

And yes any idiot can sign a form, the fact that its stipulated on the passport application that a guard/Doctor etc means that they have to do so if asked.

That does not make it brain surgery.

You missed the point . The reserve guards or Civilians should be doing the paper work ,and the guards should be out doing their jobs.
 
thedaras said:
Finally my sister had to have passport applications signed for her 3 children tonight and there were 3..yes 3 guards there all signing these forms.
Where are the reserve guards?

Why are they not doing this type of work?

Why are we paying guards to enforce laws and yet they stand behind counters signing forms when any idiot could do it.:confused:
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This is way too harsh. I can imagine how much people would give out if they went into a station and there was no "real" Guard available to deal with their issue. These forms are supposed to be signed by a Guard - not a reserve who is helping out in the station every couple of weeks.

Guards have a huge amount of paperwork to do - it is part of the job and, for court purposes, every i has to be dotted and every t crossed. By the nature of this work it will mean that there may often be a number of Guards in a station instead of out on the roads.
 
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thedaras said:
On another note on the news tonight a 25 yr old guard has been accused of making false statements
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And this same Garda is currently suspended from the force but she managed to jump straight into a waiting unmarked Garda car outside the court.
 
Yup, it was defo an unmarked car....I've seen it around Dublin with uniformed guards in it. The Mondeos and Focus seem to be the car of choice when it comes to un marked cars.

Why was this guard allowed use a state vehicle to do a run away from the Courts anyway?
 
I couldnt believe that he let that woman drive off with the 5 kids still unrestrained in the car. Way too lenient.
 
Smashbox said:
I couldnt believe that he let that woman drive off with the 5 kids still unrestrained in the car. Way too lenient.
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While I'd tend to agree on it being too lenient, I do wonder whether it would have been appropriate to stop the travel and leave the woman with five kids at the side of the road, or drag her (and the kids) off to the local station?

I know it's not really the Gardai's fault, but I think the alternatives for taking more serious immediate action could have opened a can of worms. However, the final punishment was totally inappropriate to the risk involved in that case.
 
I can't believe anyone thinks it would be better to let the lady and her 5 kids out of the car on to the side of the road. 80€ is probably a large fine to a women with 5 children so presumable the lesson is learnt.

I don't understand the point about only 2 kids having to be strapped in? Don't all cars have 3 seatbelts in the back and 1 in the passenger seat.

In relation to the unmarked Garda car at the courthouse, how can you tell an unmarked Garda car? JQ2002 you say you've seen the car around Dublin, did you take down the registration plate or what?
 
Bronte said:
I can't believe anyone thinks it would be better to let the lady and her 5 kids out of the car on to the side of the road. 80€ is probably a large fine to a women with 5 children so presumable the lesson is learnt.

I don't understand the point about only 2 kids having to be strapped in? Don't all cars have 3 seatbelts in the back and 1 in the passenger seat.

In relation to the unmarked Garda car at the courthouse, how can you tell an unmarked Garda car? JQ2002 you say you've seen the car around Dublin, did you take down the registration plate or what?
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The car was an unmarked Garda car, a Silver Ford Focus with the ariel on the roof which all unmarked Garda cars have. If a member of the force was suspended he or she should not have been using a state vehicle unless he or she was in the back of the car after being arrested of course.


As for the woman with the 5 children in the back of the car, the car itself was an old Toyota Starlet, probably mid 90's as the newer shape Starlet came out in '97 i think. Anyway, that older model Starlet only has two seatbelts in the back of the car afaik. But in this case none of the children had any seatbelts on which is seriously dangerous, if the driver had to make an emergancy stop, all of the children could have gone through the windscreen and killed the driver on the way.

This programme is meant to show us about the dangers of our roads and what the Garda Traffic Corp are doing about it...

It doesnt paint a good picture of road safety in my opinion.
 
Bronte said:
I don't understand the point about only 2 kids having to be strapped in? Don't all cars have 3 seatbelts in the back and 1 in the passenger seat.
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She had five children in the back seat - none of them were wearing seatbelts. The Guard observed that at least two of them were so young that they should have been in child safety seats.
 
In relation to the unmarked Garda car at the courthouse, how can you tell an unmarked Garda car?
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The uniformed Garda in the drivers seat can be a bit of a giveaway. :)

One easy way to tell unmarked Garda cars is that they are taxed, but not insured by a private insurance company (as the State carries its own insurance). So tax disc & no insurance disc on the windscreen.

Of course no insurance disc could be a member of the public driving uninsured, but when you couple the above with other information such as the make of the car, presence of aerials and other devices, they are very easy to spot.

Kind of defeats the purpose of an unmarked Garda car if everyone knows that its a Garda car. Always thought they should use immitation insurance discs etc.
 
Surely there is a way of removing the kids from the back of a car in which further down the road could cause a fatal accident. They shouldnt have let her drive off.

Lets say a driver was drink driving. They had five kids in the back of the car, restrained or not. What do they do with those kids?

Surely the same situation could have been applied here.
 
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