Garda Traffic Corps
The Garda Traffic Corps (Irish: Garda Cór Tráchta) is a unit of an Garda Síochána under Road Safety, Law Enforcement Branch.
The Traffic Corps'[1] main area of responsibility is ensuring the free movement of traffic and enforcement of all aspects of traffic legislation. The Traffic Corps was established in 1925 and each Garda Division has a Traffic Corps of its own. In Dublin the main Traffic Corps is located at Dublin Castle. It is headed by a Chief Superintendent and under his command are 1 Superintendents, 9 Inspectors, 37 Sergeants, 227 Gardaí and 16 Civilian Support Staff.
The Traffic Corps is present across every county of Ireland; its three largest focus cities are Dublin City, Cork City and Limerick City. The Letterkenny division in Donegal also receives a lot of presence. Due to the close border in Derry there is a high chance of high speed chases, and the Garda work closely with the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) in order to combat border-driving.
The Garda Traffic Corps use a wide range of vehicles, ranging from motorcycles to patrol cars and 4x4 jeeps. The "marked" Traffic Corps vehicle are marked different from standard Garda cars in that they have the words "Garda Traffic Corps" and "Garda Cór Tráchta" on them. They are also "Battenberg Marked" this is a repeating square pattern of alternating blue and yellow high visibility squares.
At present the main Traffic Corps car is the Ford Mondeo, while the Toyta Landcruiser and Nissan Terrano are the main 4x4's. In the last three years the Traffic Corps bike fleet has been upgraded and now the standard bike is the Honda Deauville 700cc and the Yamaha FJR 1300cc taking the role of the advanced bike.
ANPR (Automatic Number Plate Recognition) has being introduced into the Traffic Corps in since 2009. At present the majority of the Traffic Corps fleet is fitted with these systems.
Traffic Blues is a documentary series broadcast on RTÉ One. It follows various traffic officers from the Garda Síochána.[2]
There are 116 vehicles in the DMR Traffic Corps fleet (18th February 2011) as follows:
- 65 Motorcycles (22 Yamaha FJRs, 2 Pan European 1100, 41 Honda Deauvilles)
- 28 Marked (overt) patrol cars
- 10 Unmarked (covert) patrol cars
- 12 Jeeps
- 1 ' Robot' - Mobile Speed Detection Van
[edit] References
- ^ "The Traffic Corps". Garda Síochána. 2009. http://www.garda.ie/Controller.aspx?Page=110&Lang=1. Retrieved 2009-10-15.
- ^ "IFTN Press Release". http://www.iftn.ie/news/?act1=record&aid=73&rid=4282153&tpl=archnews&only=1. Retrieved 2009-06-02.
