Boy racers zoom around our national blind spot

IN the context of recent media coverage of so many young people dying on Irish roads, I have no doubt the country’s ambivalent attitude to road safety is a major contributory factor.

What do I mean by this?

On the one hand, everyone agrees (parents, motorists, the gardaí, RSA, media) that there are far too many young people dying on Irish roads, that they need to slow down, that more care needs to be taken by these inexperienced young drivers who need more instruction on the responsible use of a car. All of this sounds perfectly well meaning and logical.

On the other hand, paradoxically, there appears to be a tacit acceptance of 17-year-olds who soup up cars. A blind eye is turned to teenagers (especially by parents) who modify cars beyond recognition so that they resemble racing cars in such movies as The Fast and the Furious — a movie that glorifies breakneck speed by teenage drivers, stunts and danger.

Apparently there are no laws broken when second-hand car dealers sell practically fully-fledged rally cars to learner and inexperienced drivers. There is explicit approval for car rallies and while these are perfectly legitimate, there is no doubt they influence the more intellectually challenged young drivers to imitate these racers on public roads with a breathtaking disregard for other road-users. When it comes to young drivers and road safety, the country is in deep denial. Most towns, villages and cities are veritable rally tracks now on weekend nights. Gangs of teenagers hit the roads at high speed with roaring exhaust pipes to emulate the heroic actions of fictional characters in The Fast and the Furious and to court disaster at breakneck speed while performing various stunts and engaging in lethal horseplay — just look at the ‘doughnut’ skid marks on roads all over the country as a result of high-speed handbrake turns and so-called car drifting.

While all of this is happening, the risk to the life and limb of every other road-user skyrockets. All it will take is for an innocent, unsuspecting motorist to come upon these lethal antics unexpectedly at 100km/h and carnage will ensue.

No doubt we will then be subjected to the ponderings of those in deep denial that it was all due to a dangerous bend or a bad road, or a momentary lapse in concentration.

Rubbish! People really need to wake up and smell the burning rubber.

Parents are in further denial when they insure these death traps in their own name and put their son or daughter on as a ‘named’ driver, even though in many cases the parents would never have even been in the car.

The insurance industry is in denial when it accepts the teenager as a ‘named’ driver and in further denial if it believes all these car modifications are disclosed to it when the policy is taken out.

Recently I asked the Road Safety Authority (which has done terrific work in reducing overall road deaths) if it would include on its website a hazard notice to all motorists, warning of the activities of such young drivers late at night and perhaps provide through their website a recommended course of action should innocent drivers come upon this lethal activity in the early hours.

I assumed it was a good idea that could help save lives. Astonishingly, my request was refused.

If anyone thinks our bizarre ambivalence to road safety will be resolved by nambi-pambi education programmes, they are also in denial.

I know some of these drivers and they would laugh at the thought of participating in an education programme, believing themselves to be invincible, heroic and indestructible.

Only when our ambivalence to road safety and young drivers ends will there be any chance of law and order and safety returning to our public roads.

Kevin Fitzsimons

Knockrour

Kilbehenny

Co Limerick