Not So Fast

by Mike

It’s Christmas which means it’s time for a road safety campaign. I am fully behind those who encourage drivers to heed of how fast they are travelling and preach safety because at the end of the day if they do not someone is going to get hurt.

For the life of me I do not understand why speeding is seen in some circles as a badge of honour. Give some people a reasonable stretch of road and they take it upon themselves to drive faster then they were before. Maybe there’s a thrill to it I do not know, but I doubt there is much of a thrill if the drivers are the ones who end up in the emergency rooms simply because they chose not to slow down.

Why do we all seem to be in a rush? Is the home we are going not still going to be there even if we arrive a few minutes later and somewhat slower? Maybe because I do not drive I cannot appreciate what it is like to be in certain situations where you have to make a judgement call such as this.

However I have been on enough car journeys to know that there are many who quite simply do not know the rules of the road and simply learn enough to pass the driving test. The bus lane becomes an excuse to use your indicator for 40 or 50 yards. On some occasions it seems like there is a rule that only a select few are privy too, while other “ordinary” folk have to make do with the normal lanes. Maybe it is like Club Class in Aer Lingus?! Again it’s somewhere I’ve never been.

I really hope that this new road safety campaign will convince people to slow and think about their actions. I really hope that families will not have to deal with losing loved ones because of road accidents that could have been prevented. I really hope that the 50 second adverts that are soon to appear on our screens tonight will make us all so sick to our stomachs that we never even want to drink and drive or to commit speeding offences ever again.

I really hope for all of this but then again hope is one thing, reality is another. Last month it was revealed by the Minister of State at the Department of Transport, Dick Roche that there have been an average of 28 deaths on Irish roads each month so far this this year, roughly seven per week, or to use an even rougher figure, 1 per day. Does that scare anyone?

We can have all the campaigns we want, you can ram the message down people’s throats (please do Mr Byrne, by the way) but at the end of the day the only person that is going to help change this is one behind the wheel. I would love to see some common sense because I want to see more people live rather then parents burying their children.

Thursday, December 13th, 2007 and is filed under Pain and suffering, Thoughts & Questions, Views on News.