South Meath Driving School

The Minister, Noel, preached on Road Safety issues. The Road Safety Authority executive, another  Noel, spoke in similar tones. Assistant Commissioner, John Twomey, made his appeal, too, all on the one note, ‘Slow down and take safety seriously.’ In the last week of October, there were eight fatalities on our roads. It’s easy to see why those dark numbers are creeping up again. One day last week I drove from Mullingar to Longford in daylight and did the return journey at night. It’s in the 100kmh zone which I kept. But most of the time I found that I was literally in other drivers way. If I’m doing the maximum speed, I will not dare to pull in on the hard shoulder to let another driver pass. So a queue builds up behind me, but there’s no one in front. Yes, I’m in the way, keeping the maximum speedlimit. Then the half chance to overtake arises and on more than one occasion I was forced to pull left to allow the overtaker get back in in one piece. In one of those little episodes, a mature lady driver who had misjudged the speed of the oncoming vehicle, had to force her way back in between my right front wing and the flashing lights of the other driver. Such instances are very frequent experiences for most drivers. They may be just ‘little episodes’ because nothing of note transpired, no impact, just a close call, no injury and no death, no complaint of dangerous driving, no day out in Court. But, some of those incidents happened where there was a continuous white line breached. The attitude then is ‘I’m in a hurry, nothing is going to delay me.’ In looking at road crash scenes on television, where there was a head-on collision, there is so often one glaring aspect – that of the continuous white line and, often, close to a corner.

Now, it’s one thing for a car driver to overtake in such circumstances, but what of the juggernaut with a 40 foot container? And isn’t there supposed to be a suppressor on such lorry to prevent it exceeding its limit of 80kph? I understand that a private company has taken on the task of operating the national speed camera system and which came into operation on the 1st of this month. I don’t know how many, if any, there are on the Mullingar route West, but, the more the merrier for those who have a scintilla of consideration for the safety of others and themselves. Afterall, there have been 173 funerals this year and over 1000 people have suffered serious injury as a result of road crashes, a lot of grief, cost and loss to the economy.

Travelling at nightime can be quite uncomfortable with the glare of headlights from those who dip only when they come into your sightline. Then there’s the one who ‘sits’ on your rear bumper with dipped lights set too high and loves to do a Newgrange winter solstice brightening up your dark chamber! A common feature of nightime driving is illegal use of foglights. Some drivers use them automatically with headlights and, on meeting oncoming traffic, choose to dip the heads and do not extinguish the foglights: this causes not only discomfort, but actual danger. Foglights may be used only in fog or falling snow. It would be encouraging to see our good folk in the Traffic Corps act on this. The NCT brought about a great improvement in car headlight condition, but, I’m of the opinion that the enforcers have left it to those tests to deal with the lights issue on their own.

Young people of Ireland, as Papa Paul addressed you, it’s difficult not to harp on about your plight on the roads. In this year so far, passenger deaths of those aged 16 to 25 years account for almost 60% of all deaths. Responsibility lies with the driver to ensure that all passengers are belted up. If there is not a belt for each passenger, then the vehicle is overloaded. Youth, Innocence and no little responsibility seem to go hand in hand and if that is part of sowing wild oats it may also be the reason for the silly statistic quoted above. Know who your driver is, ensure he or she is in a healthy condition to drive: that includes drugs as well as drink. Ensure, too, that the vehicle is safe and not overloaded. Parents worry enough about their children; let the children start to give back more – and  continue to do so.