Community guidelines

Every report here is read by a person before it appears. These are the rules they apply. They are short, and following them is mostly a matter of writing down what you saw and stopping there.

Last updated 16 August 2026

The three that matter most

Describe the behaviour, not the person

Write what the vehicle did. Do not write who you think was driving, what they looked like, what you assume about them, or what you would like to happen to them.

Instead of: “Some idiot in a white van, probably a delivery driver, nearly killed me”
Write: “White van overtook me on the approach to a blind bend and pulled in sharply to avoid an oncoming car”

The second is more useful to everyone, including you: it is specific, it is checkable against the road, and it is the version that gets published.

Report what you saw, not what you concluded

“Doing at least 100” is an estimate presented as a measurement. “Drunk” is a diagnosis. “Deliberately” is a claim about somebody’s intentions that nobody in another car can make. Say what happened and let it speak.

For a road issue, the location is the subject

Road issue reports are about a junction, a surface or a sign — not about the people who drive there and not about the council. A report that is mostly about who is to blame for a road tends to be published as a shorter report about the road.

Things that will always be refused

Anyone’s personal details. No names, phone numbers, email addresses, home addresses, Eircodes, PPS numbers or bank details — yours or anybody else’s. The form catches most of those patterns and stops you before a moderator ever sees it. A name it cannot catch, and a moderator will.
A registration in a road issue description. Road issues are about places. If a vehicle is the problem, that is a vehicle report, and the registration belongs in the registration box on that form — never in the description, on either kind of report.
Descriptions of a person. Age, gender, ethnicity, clothing, “the man who works at” — a description precise enough to identify somebody is identification, whether or not it uses their name.
Abuse, threats, and slurs. Including about a driver who genuinely did something dangerous.
Anything you did not see yourself. Not what you were told, not what you read on a local Facebook group, not a plate somebody sent you.
Private disputes. Parking arguments with a neighbour, an ongoing row with a business, or anything where the road is not really the subject.
Advertising and campaigning. Links, promotions, and petitions are all removed.

Practical things

One incident per report. Three things that happened on the same journey are three reports, or one report about the one that mattered.
500 characters is the limit on both kinds of report, and it is generous for what is being asked. If you are running out of room you are probably explaining rather than describing.
Check the registration twice. A single wrong character puts your report on a stranger’s car. Nothing here can check a plate against a real vehicle, so this is the one detail no one downstream can catch. If you are unsure of the serial, leave it out — the form accepts the year and county on their own, and a partial report is far better than a confident wrong one.
If it is already reported, confirm it. Road issue pages carry an “I’ve experienced this too” button. Using it counts you without making a moderator read a second description of the same junction, and the number it moves is the one councils look at.

If something goes wrong

Sent back for editing. The screening found something — usually a phone number or a plate in the wrong field — and tells you what while the form is still open. Fix it and submit again; it does not count against your daily limit.

Refused. A moderator decided it should not be published, and you are emailed the reason. It also appears on your reports, because an explanation that only exists in an email you have deleted is not much of an explanation.

You think that was wrong. Every refusal can be challenged from that same page, and a person — not an automated check — reads the challenge and answers it.

Repeatedly ignoring these guidelines will get an account suspended. That is a last resort and it is not what a single rejected report leads to.

Something already published looks wrong to you

You do not need an account, and you do not need to have written it. Report content is the route for anything published here that breaks these rules or the law. This is not my vehicle is the faster route for the specific case of a registration that has been read wrong — it does not ask you to prove anything.

These guidelines form part of the terms of use.