Why I need an S for Shane Ross plate
I intensely dislike being on the same side of any road with Shane Ross, this May, or any May. This is a man who is
ALWAYS correct in his arguments on any issue under the sun, and he will also be 100% correct on some issue of principle or power which he will raise soon, and which will topple our current Government.
And there is another likely truth.
The good minister’s drive to reduce the mortality rates on our roads is, of course, beyond reasonable criticism.
It is so sad however, for us provincials, that it is linked
directly to binding measures which, over the course of a short time, will virtually empty rural roads of all traffic, except Garda patrols checking on you and I.
The checks will be most stringent and frequent in all areas close to the dwindling number of country pubs, which have always been the primary rural community centres.
That truth is helping to depopulate remote parishes where folk, often bachelor farmers living alone, are afraid to go out at night for the solace of a pint or a chat with neighbours, for fear of losing their vital driving licenses.
Savagely enough, there is a probable link between that situation and a sadly rising rural suicide rate.
We won’t say any more on that issue just now.
However, because of a straying black heifer on a dark road near Shannon seven years ago, when I was in my 60s, I find myself being forced to agree today with the suggestion that senior drivers like myself... and those driving behind them... would benefit from an extension of the existing warning L and N plates system.
The heifer had strayed on to my road home that dark winter evening, her black backside was facing me on the road, rather than her reflecting bright eyes, and we collided. Fortunately, she survived, the damage to the car was minimal, her apologetic owner willingly paid for my repairs and, one would imagine, all ended well.
That is not so, regrettably, and that sadly too is the pure truth which now puts me on the same side of the road as the always right Minister, in his drive to make our roads safer whatever the odds.
Ye see, after that incident, when I drive nowadays at night, I fear the presence of a black bullock or heifer in every cluster of roadside shadows.
Accordingly, I do not rely on the automatic conditioned reflexes that carried me safely all over Ireland in my earlier years. I am concentrating sharply all the time, and now attacking my 70s, quite frankly, I drive too slowly and safely much of the time.
I am unduly hesitant on roads strange to me, especially in cities, and both myself and those captured behind me would benefit from an S for senior plate on my vehicle, indicating I am no longer in the full flush of youth and energy.
In Galway last weekend, in heavy traffic, my driving style attracted honking road rage from other drivers in a hurry.
On rural roads, though I constantly pull in to the verge to free those behind me, I’ve noted too often that impatient drivers rushing about their business constantly risk their own safety by passing me on short stretches where they should not attempt to do so.
Often they barely get back to safety on their proper side before avoiding an equally busy and speeding driver coming around the bend against them.
Even though an “S” plate on my windows will always be a Shane plate for me, I feel, reluctantly enough, on a national basis, that it would be a positive step that would indeed reduce the horrific road mortality toll. And that truth, in all fairness, is a hard one for me to write, under all the circumstances.
Back in the yesterdays of a different Ireland, the roads might have been twistier than today, but most of us were driving cars like old Fords and Volkswagens and suchlike which did not have the awesome speed and power of modern cars.
Those sedate old bangers could be relied upon totally to get us home safe, even if we had the couple of pints in the pub that would land us in Mountjoy today.
An S plate, at the very least, would afford us more seasoned drivers a strong defence to counter the ignorant road rage honking we too often have to endure.
And because many of the speed merchants/road ragers might properly react to our Shane plates in the way we all react today to the existing range of plates on screen display, they might not be so ready to risk their own lives so readily by overtaking on dangerous stretches.
Shane plates on our roads tomorrow, emanating from that urban resident who is ALWAYS right, could prove to be the brightest spot on his political legacy, long after his role in toppling his current Government is forgotten.
And what about adding a V plate too, to protect our many overseas visitors on vacation here, too many of whom annually contribute to the road fatality statistics by automatically heading for the wrong side of our roads in emergency situations?
Drive safely in the meantime, all of you.
