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Youth Voice: Take some personal responsibility for making Irish roads safer.

Unless you’re one of those strange hermit people who live up the side of a mountain (which is perfectly acceptable, by the way, I have no problem with people like that!) you can’t have missed the TV and newspaper reports about the amount of road accidents in Ireland in the first six months of 2006.

As I’m writing 226 people have died in car crashes in Ireland. Really think about that for a few seconds. It’s easy to just register that figure, but that’s over two hundred actual people dead, two hundred fathers, brothers, mothers, sisters, children, over two hundred families left behind.

A lot of the blame is put down to drink driving, or lack of Gardai, but personally, I don’t think that these are the major problems. The Gardai can’t realistically be everywhere, and drink driving has, thankfully, become socially unacceptable (I think!), and often if someone has drink on board, their friends won’t actually let them drive. I’m not saying that it’s been stamped out entirely, but it’s not nearly as common as it was, and for that, society deserves a little pat on the back. It’s a good start, but it’s obviously not enough.

In the three and a bit years that I’ve had a licence, I’ve come to the conclusion that the biggest cause of ‘accidents’ in Ireland is speed and aggressive driving. I really believe that some of the scary stunts I’ve seen being performed at and above 120kph are responsible for the occasional grey hair I find on my head (I’m only 21, by the way, I shouldn’t be getting greys!). As they say in this part of the world, ‘they’d put the heart sideways in ya!’.

A lot of motorists out on the open road seem to be in some insane rush to get to wherever they’re going, as if their lives depended on it. They’re perfectly happy to overtake on blind bends, or in front of oncoming traffic, simply because the car in front is just not going fast enough, even if they’re on or over the speed limit. And although I have absolutely no love for boy racers, they’re not entirely to blame here. There’s plenty of ‘grown-up’ drivers who are just as, or even more dangerous, and drive even bigger and more powerful cars. People need to relax on the roads, there’s absolutely no need to drive like a maniac. You don’t own the road mate!

Next time you sit into a car and turn the ignition, think about this: You are in charge of piloting a couple of thousand kilos of metal, glass and plastic, which runs on petrol (which is quite literally explosive), and is capable of travelling at speeds your great-grandparents could only have dreamed of.

Even if you are travelling at the speed limit, if you’re in a head on collision with another car at the same speed, the force of that crash is TWO HUNDRED km/h. Your (and your passengers) chances of surviving are small. Drive sensibly and pay full attention out on the roads. Don’t take some of the pointless and stupid risks you see others taking. A speed limit is a limit, not a minimum speed.

Take some personal responsibility for making Irish roads safer, and use some common sense. NOTHING is worth putting your life (and other peoples lives) in danger; it’s better to be ten minutes late than to never arrive at all. As a friend of mine once put it, if you’re not careful, your car could end up being your coffin.

By: Andrew Gibbons

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