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LAST Wednesday I drove from Dublin to Kilkenny. Knowing I was going to write this piece, I ran a checklist as I drove. I took the N7 as far as the Athy exit, then drove the N84 through Castlecomer. It was late afternoon.
On the motorway section I counted 23 cars with L-plates that were not carrying a passenger. L-drivers are not permitted on the motorway at all, even when accompanied by a qualified driver. Eleven of them were exceeding the speed limit by a considerable amount. I am talking about unqualified drivers, already breaking the law by being there in the first place, exceeding 90 mph on a crowded motorway.
The Naas dual carriageway (the N7 before it becomes the motorway) was its usual late-afternoon mayhem. I counted 17 haulage trucks playing dodgems with each other and the cars on the N7, as they pulled from inside to outside lane and back again. This practice continued on the motorway.
A series of small buses ("private coaches") were doing the same thing on the N7. I saw four of them forcing their way into the outside lane of bumper-to-bumper traffic, without signalling, and coming very close to causing accidents.
On the outskirts of Athy, a Transit van pulled from the far side of the road into a filling station. He nearly removed my front bumper; he hadn't signalled, or even slowed.
On the narrow, corkscrewing N84 between Castlecomer and Kilkenny, nine cars (two of them carrying L-plates) pulled out of the stream of commuter traffic and scorched through multiple bends on the wrong side of the road.
Only two cars did the blind overtaking on the return journey later that night; but one of them had no lights on. I suspect the driver was drunk: not half a pint over the limit, and a bit tired; blind drunk. Certainly, the driver of the car that pulled out from outside a pub in Castlecomer directly in front of me, without signalling, was drunk. After weaving down the road for a couple of miles, he signalled right, then turned left.
I counted 11 cars that had only one headlight as they came towards me on the return journey. Seventeen drivers failed to dim their headlights on the long straights of the Athy road.
But, we have been told, the European Union has had enough of Irish anarchy; it's going to step in, sort out Irish driving, Irish drivers, Irish policing, and Irish legislation. Right? Wrong.
The document publicised last weekend which seems to promise action very specifically against Ireland (and Portugal) does nothing of the sort. It is an internal Orientation Paper drafted by the Commission Services for the members of the Commission.
It examines air, road, rail and sea travel across the EU, and yes, it does express concern about the death toll on roads throughout Europe. A total of 41,000 people die on EU roads each year, so it well might express concern. That, the paper apparently points out, is the equivalent of wiping out what it calls a "medium-size town". It suggests that the aim should be to reduce the number of road deaths by half by the year 2010. But it also points out that the national communities are reluctant to take action unilaterally; so it suggests that if countries haven't taken action by the year 2005, the Commission reserves the right to "propose" legislation to the Council of Ministers. Not exactly draconian terminology, even when faced with 41,000 road deaths annually, of which Ireland accounts for more than double the EU average.
So it's back to us; back to us to enforce the legislation that we already have, before we even think about passing any more. Back to us to forget the appeals to people to slow down; back to us to forget the threats of crackdown on those who flout the drink-driving laws. Back to us to start paying attention to the incompetence of at least 50 per cent of drivers, many of whom have never taken a test, and thousands of others who, even more seriously, are proven to be incompetent because they have failed the test more than twice. Back to us to put people off the road in their thousands, not for six months, but for periods from five years to life.
Anybody can cope with a six-month ban; it's not going to break the bank to have to take a few taxis. The kind of learner drivers who drive new cars can cope with a £50 fine; many of them laugh even at a £1,000 fine.
Will an irresponsible 20-year-old tearaway think of the lump sum payment at the end of one of those immoral HP agreements currently on offer? Of course not; they'll just laugh, allow the car to be repossessed, and head for one of the even more irresponsible companies who advertise that credit rating isn't a problem.
A couple of weeks ago, a 17-year-old learner driver was banned from driving for, I think, six months, after being convicted of driving at about 100 miles an hour. I don't know the details, since she is still young enough for there to be a grey area about naming her; technically a child, in fact. I have deliberately not checked the details, because I don't want to know who the judge was, or the exact location of the check, or the woman's actual speed. I don't want to be accused of personal attack.
But is there anybody who doesn't think that woman should have been put off the road until she was at least 25 years old? That, in addition, she should have been sentenced to 500 hours' community service at night time in an accident and emergency department?
Appeals and empty promises of crackdowns don't, and won't, work. Responsible people don't need them; immoral, irresponsible people don't heed them. The kind of businessman who commutes three times weekly between Cork and Dublin, and laughs at the three speeding fines he picks up each time, won't smarten his hump until he's put off the road for 10 years.
But then, he's only clocked at 90 on the motorway, where it's perfectly safe. Nothing happens to him for doing 75 on the wrong side of the road as he passes a stream of traffic between Kildare and Monasterevan, or 80 on the approach to Markethill. Just as nothing happens to the woman in the Ford Fiesta chugging at 38 mph along the crown of the N6 outside Kilbeggan, her vision obscured by fighting children, before she suddenly stops dead without signalling, because everyone knows she lives down the lane on the right, and anyway, she wasn't speeding.
If we thought the EU was going to deal with them, we were wrong. We know the gardaí can't; they're so under-resourced and staffed it's a bad joke for us and an embarrassment for them. The courts seem to be bowing to the inevitable in handing down ludicrous judgements.
Well, Minister? There were a fair few bills rushed through the Dáil in its closing days. How about having something ready to go in October that will take these potential murderers off our roads? I mean, like, you know, immediately, and for good?
Emer O'Kelly
Sunday
Independent
August 5th
2001
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