The Irish Mitsubishi FTO Owners Club

Greetings from Oz.

McGon, reading your topic my heart goes out to you, it really does. It reminds me of me situation a bit.

<rant>

Well, over a year ago I was standing innocently on O'Connell street Dublin queueing for donuts with my boyfriend, when something heavy fell on the back of my neck. While falling to the ground thinking someone had thrown a bottle out of a car I realised to my horror a chunk of the building above had fallen on me! I waited 2 hours calling the gardai and they never came, didn't give a crap, and eventually we found one on the beat. He took details and called an ambulance and I was brought to the mater. Thankfully it was only severe tissue and muscle damage but for 6 months after I couldn't mountainbike/horse ride/play badminton and had difficulty typing at computers. What haunts me to this day is the doctor telling me if that had been a few inches higher on my head, I would be six foot under in a few days. It was a big chunk and I'm only a 5'3, 8 stone wisp. Scary.

More than a year later their insurance company are still trying to find out who the owner of the bloody building is (apparently there are a few brothers) so they can do what they need to do. I've filled out the PIAB form but my solicitor hasn't actually submitted yet till the owner's name is discovered... they've dragged that out for a year now...

I'm actually genuine and had genuine injuries... yet why is it taking so long?! My solicitor says he doesn't want to push things in case they claim act of god, freakish event or unforeseeable event. He wants to just let them at it so they smartly come to the conclusion that it would be less hassle to settle it out of court. I'd have to back down otherwise - isn't that annoying! I was minding my own business and didnt bloody ask for a piece of their building to fall on me! I can't afford to go to court anyway, I'm only a graduate and I only want money for the grief and suffering it caused me. The only consolation I have is that apparently 90% of PIAB claims are settled out of court, as the business doesnt want the hassle/fees/media attention/bad rep.

I hate the gardai and this backward 'justice' system we have....

How much bloody longer can this go on? I'm getting so sick of it!! Anyone have similar stories?! </rant>

Damn good rant OI. Jeeez... puts it all in perspective eh. So I have a bumper tap but nobody seriously injured. Sounds like you were got quite bad "severe muscle and tissue damage" Damn!!!
Glad you are ok, could have very well been... worse.
Its a disgrace this stuff drags on so long. thats part of the damage is the psychological aspect of this following you for a year without getting done dusted and forgotten about
Im sure the solicitor knows best, but this stalling crap is usually sorted out with an article in a national news paper. no company wants this over them. hope it gets all sorted and closed off soon.
I'm really concerned about the gardai thing though. really concerned. The last time I rang the gardai (someone was being kicked in the street by 5 people repeatedly. stamping on his head etc) and it took them 30 minutes. thats was a 999 call aswell and I told them it looked pretty grim and this could turn very bad unless they arrived asap.
the other time I rang them recently was after 6 cars got keyed outside the door here. they never came. fair enough its not that serious, but you expect them to turn up if its during the day.

Thanks dude.

Agreed, the gardai in Ireland have gone to hell. What are we paying our taxes for?!!

Only in Ireland can you get a pizza faster than an ambulance...

gfalls wrote:

optical illusion wrote:
Only in Ireland can you get a pizza faster than an ambulance...

That's good to know... I love pizza..!

Its cause all the ambulance drivers are doing nixers for the Pizza places!

Ya, I've spoken to a few garda trainees and recent graduates and the attitude is "we're gardai so we're laughing now, happy days". I guess its the same as any other job, a lot of people will do as little as they can get away with.

You know, one day I was driving in Clonmel and an ambulance was in front of me with its sirens blaring... town traffic was very busy as it was lunch time... I was hoping the person in it would be okay as they were heading in the direction of the hospital...

To my suprise, they pulled into a take away, turned the sirens off and went in and ordered!

One way to get through lunch traffic I suppose!

Maybe they were dealing with a "battered" sausage... ho ho ho

optical illusion wrote:You know, one day I was driving in Clonmel and an ambulance was in front of me with its sirens blaring... town traffic was very busy as it was lunch time... I was hoping the person in it would be okay as they were heading in the direction of the hospital...

To my suprise, they pulled into a take away, turned the sirens off and went in and ordered!

One way to get through lunch traffic I suppose!

Technically It's against the law to do this you would have been well within your rights to take down the licence plate number and report them, The ambulance service fire brigade garda ect what these type of people to be reported as about 15 years back i remember a story about a fella in waterford i think it was who wouldn't get out of the way of an ambulance with it's lights and siren going, and he was reported and taken to court and charged with driving without due care and attention and a number of other offences, He got of with a small fine.... wana know why.....

He told the judge that only the week previous he again had an ambulance behind him going thru town in rush hour traffic after work, he pulled over to let it by and it clipped and dammaged his wing mirror, he thought nothing of it at the time thinking they were saving lives, only to see him again about a mile further down half parked up on the pavement somewhat blocking traffic and saw the driver comming out of a dry cleaners, and he told the judge that since it was exactly a week later at the same time he figured it was the same fella doing his dry cleaning run.

The judge thou not happy to do it said that he couldn't ban the driver from the road due to the irresponsible behaviour of the previous ambulance driver having a bearing on the actions of the plaintive, and charged the ambulance service to find out who the driver was which they said they couldn't do it as they had several ambulances on duty. And with the paper totally on the car plaintives side talking about abuse of power ect the ambulance service said to report such instances. And i'm positive the police and firebrigade followed suit.

I've been told that nowadays an emergency service vehicle can't even pass thru a red light without radioing in to base to get permission

Daz...

Wow man, unbelievable story!

Never knew it was a report worthy offense...

optical illusion wrote:Wow man, unbelievable story!

Never knew it was a report worthy offense...

Yes, most people don't you can report any civil servant if you think they are abusing their power.

Here's a story for you that happened to me.

Ya know the way only Dublin Police have to have their epaulettes on show Well here is a reason they all should have them.

Going back 10 years ago i was just starting to drive and i'd bought a car, a ford XR2i paid for insurance and started to drive when outside nenagh (was traveling from carlow to shannon for work every week) i was pulled over by a garda said he was going to do me for non displayment of insurance and tax, i explained i was newly insured and was waiting on my documents and i couldn't get tax till i had my documents, i had asked the motor tax office they said it was ok to drive they would back date the tax to which the garda said no thats wrong you only have 2 weeks grace after that car is to stay of the road

Fair enough i thought as i thought i would have all my certs by then, low and behold there was a cock-up with the insurance company and to cut a long story short i didn't get the certs for nearly 9 weeks. anyway during this time i continued to drive and get pulled over every week by the same garda, which after 7 weeks he said he was going to impound my car. I tried to explain about the mix-up but he didn't want to know. I went into the garda station in shannon to explain and maybe get a cover letter.


Now here is the fun part, They said they couldn't give me a cover letter and anyway i shouldn't need one as i had explained the situation to the garda including showing him the reciept for the insurance, and that what he was doing was bordering on harrasment, they themselves told me the next time he pulled me over and threatened to take my car to ask him for his Name&Number. so the following week he pulled me started shouting at me and stuff to which i said i think this is harrasment i want your name and number, he said hold on a moment went back to his car and drove off.

When i got to shannon and told the garda there (they had asked me to come back in if he pulled me again) they pi$$ed themselves laughing and said i should have taken down the reg number of the car as they sign them out for insurance purposes and could have been tracked down Needless to say i never saw that Garda again

Daz...

HA! Nice story dude, just goes to show when you know your rights, things can change dramatically...

LOL! - Awesome! Stick it to the man!