How To End The Carnage On Irish Roads

The Irish media has been inundated over the last few days with debate about how to deal with the dangerous driving on our country’s roads.

This has been prompted by a weekend of utter carnage in which eight people lost their lives; five men, one woman and two children. And though this is a particularly high statistic for a single weekend, it is by no means surprising; we have become accustomed to hearing about horrendous crashes and loss of life on an almost daily basis. From time to time we may wonder just how this could happen as consistently as it does. But to anyone who actually drives on these roads, the only shocking thing about the statistics is that they are not higher.

A few weeks ago I drove from Cork to Dublin to see a gig. The 3 1/2 hour drive was a horribly stressful experience. As is acknowledged daily on the national media, Irish motoring is treacherous at best. I use my car pretty much every day, and I regularly drive from Cork to Kerry. But it takes a good long journey to Dublin to really demonstrate just how bad things really are. So, I’ve decided to share with you some observations based on that trip and other experiences in the last few months.

1) The speed limits are a gentle suggestion, rather than a law. Nobody takes heed of them. If you drive at the speed limit, you will be overtaken by almost every car behind you. Fact. Not only that, but you will be invariably tailgated for miles while intolerant drivers wait for that window of opportunity to tear past you.

2) There are scumbags all over the roads driving tin missiles at ridiculous speeds. Paint me pink bigoted polka dots, but I am sick and tired of being p.c. when it comes to this issue. I am all for an inclusive society, but let’s not keep out minds so open that our brains fall out. To me, some scobe in a Honda Civic crashing at 140 kmph into an oncoming car is the same as some scobe murdering an innocent passerby with a screwdriver. These people don’t care about the consequences of their actions, how easily what they are doing can end in the wanton destruction of human life. They don’t care because it hasn’t been taught to them – and even if they do mow down some innocent pedestrian, they know perfectly well that it will be treated as a motor “accident” rather than manslaughter or murder in a court. A fine, then jail for a few months, maybe a few years. So what?

3) Just to provide an example of the above: On the way to Dublin, we stopped at the house of an acquaintance. While there, an unknown friend of that friend arrived into the house and announced, proudly, that he had just been racing a new car. “That was fastest I ever drove”, he said, “150 mph”. Just to reiterate, folks: that’s One Hundred and Fifty Miles per hour. On the main Cork to Dublin road. Now, why would this idiot walk into a room and say something like that? Simply, because he knows that he can. And that’s the typical Irish attitude; if you can get away with it, then it’s acceptable. It’s a little anecdote to share with others, even people you’ve just met.

4) Irish motorists take the stupidest risks on a regular basis. Aside from the aforementioned tailgating, the most common is overtaking at totally inappropriate places, not to mention speeds. Driving home to Kerry from Cork yesterday, my sister and I both saw, within five minutes of each other, two near-collisions on the main Cork-Mallow road. Both were approaching bends in the road, and both doing at least the speed limit. The first one, in particular actually had to swerve at the last second to avoid ploughing into oncoming traffic. And you know what? Noone blew their horns, everyone carried on as normal. Why? Because this reckless behaviour IS normal on Irish roads. This happens all the time. It is common knowledge that if you drive certain routes, you are guaranteed to see people driving like maniacs.

There is a very simple solution to all of this. And it bypasses the whole debate over whose fault it is – the RSA’s, the drivers themselves etc. Because at this point, all that is moot. The simple solution is this.

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Ready? Here we go.

UNMARKED CARS.

Let me explain with another example. On that same stretch of road I just mentioned (Cork – Mallow), there actually was a garda presence yesterday. And it was this: A big white Garda car parked on the side of the road, barely hidden, and blatantly visible at least about 5-10 seconds before actually passing it. The SUV that had just passed me out, doing about 130 kmph, slowed down to the speed limit as it passed. About 30 seconds later it had accelerated to its original speed and soon vanished from view. That Garda car being there was totally useless. And even if he gets three penalty points and a fine, so bloody what? He can still get back in his SUV and drive away, safe in the knowledge that the odds of actually being caught again are miniscule.

If the Gardai stopped driving around in stripy white cars with the word GARDAI emblazoned across the front of it, maybe – just maybe – they’d have more chance of actually catching people breaking the law, don’t you think? Because, let’s face it, the methods they are using at the moment are all but useless.

Why, for the love of God, don’t they just go out in unmarked cars? This simple move, implemented on a wide enough basis, would have a massive impact on drivers’ behaviour. At the moment, if you speed all the way through your road trip and don’t encounter one of those big white cars, you know you’re grand. There are no repercussions whatsoever for your behaviour, and you will do it again. It becomes habit, as does all the aggression and impatience that you’ll feel when stuck behind someone actually obeying the limit.

But if that car you just overtook at 140kmph suddenly hits sirens and flashing lights, pulls you over and spits out a pair of pissed-off cops who have caught you red-handed in the act of endangering the lives of other motorists (or even if you saw this happening to someone else) – you would seriously think twice about doing it again. If there’s even the vaguest possibility that the guy in front of you doing the limit is a cop, you might at the very least wait for a safe place to overtake.

The debates raging in the media about rolling out speed cameras, making drink driving laws more strict, enforcing provisional licences etc are all basically, distractions. And Fianna Fail badly needs these distractions at the moment, because the entire transport infrastructure in this country is a complete joke. In this country, if you have to get from A to B within a certain time, then you drive. The buses are totally unreliable, expensive and the drivers are often petty little Hitlers who could care less for the people they are transporting. The train service is even worse; they are prohibitively expensive, you are not guaranteed a seat, and the service has known to actually take longer to reach their destination than buses on the same route. That’s defying the laws of physics.

These services only survive because they are government-subsidised and have a total monopoly on the industry. They go on strike whenever they want, at the drop of a hat. Hey, they even decided to pull one over the weekend! From The Belfast Telegraph:

“Iarnrod Eireann has had to cancel more services this afternoon due to unofficial industrial action by some train drivers. Ten commuter trains operating on lines through Connolly Station have been cancelled due to the action, which relates to a dispute over rosters. This morning’s 6.30am Portlaoise to Dublin train and this evening’s 5.30pm service from Dublin to Carlow had already been scrapped as a result of the row.”

“A dispute over rosters“. I think that almost every person I know who has ever worked in shift jobs has experienced disputes over rosters. But they didn’t deal with it by going on strike, because the irresponsibility of doing so would have lost them their jobs. “Unofficial industrial action” basically means that these guys can do whatever they want, whenever they want. And the government allows them to do so with impunity. There is no responsibility, no regulation, no accountability for anyone. For Christ’s sake, is it even possible for one of these guys to get fired?

I don’t mean to seem facetious. Indeed, all of this would be funny if it weren’t so intimately connected to the carnage on our roads. People are avoiding using public transport, with good cause, and this means more and more cars on our streets, roads and motorways. And the total lack of effective motor law enforcement means that the CIE credo of “no responsibility, no regulation, no accountability” swells to embrace the dangerous drivers who know that nobody will police their actions.

Because without actual physical Garda presence on the roads, in a capacity that actually puts the fear of getting caught into people, nothing will change – absolutely nothing. It is the attitudes of motorists that need to be addressed. Graphic advertisements don’t work. News reports don’t work. The Gardai have to do their jobs as protectors of the peace and get out there and start catching dangerous drivers in the act.

And if using subterfuge is the most effective way to achieve that, then so be it.

Evil Advertising 2: Suzuki Saves Africa

My jaw hit the floor when I saw this ad. Car companies have been one of the most blatant culprits to the destruction of the Earth’s environment since the Industrial Revolution. Because of their links with fuel companies (like Shell, who, by the way, made a record profit of 27.6 billion dollars in 2007) , they have purposely delayed the release of all non-fossil energies, in spite of their myriad advances. All this sanctimonious Toyota Prius stuff seems pathetic when you know that electricity and even water alone can be used to power modified engines efficiently, and without any of the rancid emissions that accompany Shell’s product – but companies like Shell won’t allow that to happen.

But for a car company to suggest that their vehicle has something to do with saving African wildlife?? Multinationals like Suzuki have been raping third-world countries, Africa included, non-stop for a good century now. The history of human rights abuses committed by unscrupulous companies is long and gruesome.

Even to give a recent example: Countries like the Sudan cannot afford to harvest their own oil reserves, and so are farming it out to Chinese and US companies who have exhausted their other resources. These companies will gladly purchase fuel from corrupt governments, while at the same time turn a blind eye to genocide and ethnic cleansing in these same countries.

But, no, forget all that. We’re saving the world now. We’re protecting rhinos. Yes, that’s why Irish people buy SUV’s. To tear across the Serengeti with Tony Fitzjohn, looking for nasty poachers. It’s not the Soccer Moms with one lonely child in the back, driving around streets in Cork that are about half the size of the vehicle itself. It’s not the emasculated fathers whose brainless rationale is usually, “Well, I want to keep my family as safe as possible” (and let’s not forget the unspoken addendum to this delightful morality; “And if I crash into some lower-class family driving a lesser car, to Hell with them. I’ve got bullbars, for Christ’s sake.”) No, it’s none of those. We’re saving rhinos, people.

How dare anyone compare owning a gas-guzzling, street-hogging, brat-freighting, tailgating SUV to saving the lives of endangered species in Third-World countries. It’s an insult to your intellience and mine. And doe-eyed Soccer Moms nothwithstanding, I’m hopeful that at least some Irish people are informed enough to be angry about this – and to tell Suzuki to cop on to themselves.