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.

The Secret: Fact Or Fiction?

Rhonda Byrne’s book, “The Secret” – and the film of the same title – have become true global phenomenon. Millions of people around the world have purchased this guide in its various forms to get in on this supposedly life-changing, clandestine information.

It’s all based on the non-scientific “Law Of Attraction”. This theoretical law suggests that if and when you desire something, you must a) Ask the Universe for it, b) believe totally – and act – as if you already had the object of your desire and then c) wait. The book suggests that that which you long for will be with you before long. This can apply to everything; from a parking space outside the local Supermarket to that mansion to house you and your supermodel wife.

Of course, this mini-movement has many, many detractors. The fact that whole enterprise has virtually no scientific basis whatsoever is probably its Achilles’ Heel, at least for those who deem impirically measurable evidence a basis for belief. And that, as a self-contained theoretical argument, is fairly airtight.

But things are rarely as simple as that, at least in terms of actual human experience. The fractal, multi-layered nature of the mind, and how it moves and works, is something that all of science has only been able to accurately rationalize in a few fleeting bursts of brilliance. And even at that, many of those same theories are discounted in time and viewed as little more than historical curiosities (i.e., Freud’s fetish theory).

What something like “The Secret” does is offer the reader something much more simple and applicable; it lays out a practical set of instructions for achieving your hopes and dreams. It is a user’s manual for the mind.

And while many people, especially those of a particularly religious bent, are up in arms over the system’s seemingly Atheistic timbre, most have failed to notice that none of the information in the book is new. For example, Wallace D. Wattles wrote a book called “The Science Of Getting Rich” in 1910, which is essentially the inspiration for “The Secret” (but that applies more to the “monetary gain” side of  the theory). Indeed, the fundamental idea that what you believe in is what you experience, is not new at all. Robert Anton Wilson has made reference to it countless times in his work. One of his more famous examples is probably that of the number 23; Wilson proposed that this number was consistently used more than other numbers, and that if you kept your wits about you, you would notice this phenomenon too.

In this statement, however, Wilson had an ulterior motive (as he almost always did). The basis for the experiment was not to find that, yes, 23 is indeed everywhere, but to understand that yes, 23 is indeed everywhere if you are looking for it. And so is everything else; wealth, opportunity, poverty, love, hate etc. The mind finds what it wants to find – or, as Wilson put it, “What the thinker thinks, the prover proves“.

I think that that single, beautiful axiom fairly explains, or at least, acts as a guide to a great amount of the human experience, with all its bizarre proclivities and aversions. The brain is a filtration system, and what you choose to filter is how you will see the universe.

“The Secret” seems to bypass explanation of this mechanism, and instead offers an overview, using different metaphors, of how simply to use it. It tells the reader that after they have decided upon a desire, they must think and act as if they already had it. Re-introducing Wilson’s theory, this is simply another way of telling the mind to look for evidence of your success, of the attainment of your goal, everywhere. If this is accomplished, you will have set up a miniature belief system, which, almost by definition, rejects any conflicting information (in the same way that someone on the lookout for 23 will all but ignore 1-22 and 24-infinity).

According to “The Secret”, this sets in motion a cosmic mechanism which will begin to draw that which you want inexorably towards you. This is what the book refers to as “The Law Of Attraction”. One might argue that this is not actually an ethereal attraction, but rather the end result of a mind that is trained to filter out all possibilities other than triumph. Sports psychologists have long been aware of this trend; it is rarely the physical exertion alone that wins a contest, but rather the mindset of the competitors. Any physician worth their salt knows that the patient’s mindset can totally overrule the physical prognosis, be it for better or worse.

In his book “The War Of Art”, Steven Pressfield describes how the very act of working creatively seems to generate all sorts of ‘lucky breaks’ for the author:

“A process is set in motion by which, inevitably and infallibly, heaven comes to our aid. Unseen forces enlist in our causes; serendipity reinforces our purpose.”

I have observed this myself first hand. When crafting something new, the most discrete elements regularly fall together in unpredicted harmony. Combinations of musical notes and chords arise as if by accident, video edits sync up to create effects that exceed your original expectations, ideas fall from the sky to tie two disparate, awkward paragraphs together. You can argue about the mathematics of chance all day, but the fact remains that this happens with alarming regularity. Deciding to create something seems to draw the Muses down from the heavens.

It seems especially astounding that many of the mental techniques described in “The Secret” are adaptations of methods considered “occult” not long ago. The entire process of Sigil Magick, for example, is based on deciding to do or get something, writing it down, warping the words into an image, mentally sending the image out into the ether… and then waiting for the actuality to come to you. Techniques like this were once used by social misfits like “The Great Demon” Aleister Crowley; now they are sold as part of a glossy movie with a tie-in book, and featured on Oprah.

Regardless of the metaphors used to describe the incredible results of human determination, the simple fact remains that the ability to harness it is a wonderful thing. And while some of the constructs in “The Secret” can come across as terribly overwrought at times, it is based on old information that people have used for centuries. It is certainly flawed in places, and offers rather simplistic views of, for example, why bad events sometimes befall people (they drew it upon themselves, apparently).

But at its heart, it is simply trying to say that good thoughts and good actions will bring good things. It implores that generosity is a supreme virtue. It advocates laughter, love and gratitude as essential tenets for a happy life. And no matter how OTT the presentation or dubious the science, anything that promotes those kinds of ideals has to be admired. As for the Law Of Attraction? Well, it might be cosmic movements and it might just be human determination. 

Whatever the case, if it looks like it works and it feels like it works, then it works.

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Further Viewing:

“The Secret” – Entire film viewable on Google Video

“Robert Anton Wilson – Maybe Logic” – Entire film viewable on Google Video