Conor Kenny | Online Opinion editor
The most moving description of any road accident is surely that of Heathcote Williams’ brilliant poem, Autogeddon. In it, the Englishman gloomily points out that since the creation of cars by Karl Benz in 1885, “seventeen million people have been killed by them in an undeclared war”. That figure is now much higher than when Williams’ poem was published over twenty years ago, but the message of it remains chillingly relevant. While figures this January have shown that there has been an impressive 57% fall in road deaths over the last five years in Ireland, what these figures reveal has also unearthed uncomfortable realities that must be faced by the youngest drivers in the country. The problem of road-ready revheads has not been cut out at the root, even if many of these culprits no longer reside here.
Earlier this month, the Irish Independent published an article claiming that the decrease in deaths on the road in Ireland was a direct result of the high rates of young people who have emigrated. My initial reaction to this piece was that of simmering outrage at the lazy and no doubt ageist assumption that boy-racers rocketing across the highways with their spoilers on show were the primary cause of tragic road accidents. Surely this was nothing more than an indolent stereotype conjured from the mind of yet another right wing, middle-aged stuffed shirt writing at a broadsheet paper. To my dismay, however, I was forced to admit to myself that the article made a great deal of sense. It is difficult to argue with the implication of figures showing that 70% of road deaths in the country are male, and 30% are also under the age of 24. Thousands of the people who fall into this category are rapidly leaving Ireland for greener pastures, and it is undoubtedly a plausible if uncomfortable theory that these two realities are indeed linked.
Even judging purely from first hand experience, there is a great deal that unnerves me about the manner in which many of my contemporaries conduct themselves behind the wheel. Failing to indicate on roundabouts (not something entirely specific to young drivers either) is one thing, but flying along the dual carriageways a fair rate above the speed limit in treacherous conditions is another matter entirely. Although it is worth pointing out that given the current appearance of the roads themselves in Ireland, the conditions are rarely likely to be anything other than treacherous.
It cannot be denied that throughout much of the country, the state of the roads is appalling. A report released just yesterday, carried out by Engineers Ireland found that the condition of roads in Ireland has “deteriorated rapidly” in recent years, and many of these are only being mended on a “patchwork basis”. I spent a great deal of the summer of 2012 driving along an old and bumpy country road from Cork City out to Carrignavar, a village in the north of the county. Most of these trips were done under a moleskin black sky, and even with my lights on full-beam I would often find myself hurtling into the darkness with little awareness of anything that was more than twenty yards ahead of me. Only the glare of the lights in the basin of the city helped in any way to illuminate the return legs of these journeys, and I have no problem in admitting that the first time I drove in these conditions I found them to be incredibly daunting. Presumably this was much to the amusement of people who were actually residents in the countryside, as cars would routinely burn past over my shoulder, zooming off into the distance with likely scorn for the city boy in the Fiesta going at the comparatively turtleneck speed of 80km an hour.
For those used to living in the countryside, roads of this ilk are no doubt unexceptional. Farmers are, after all, by definition compelled to work and reside in such conditions. There is no possible government policy that can relocate agricultural land to the urban areas. Is it too much to ask that these roads, being the most meandering and poorly lit ones in the land, are at least smooth and free of potholes?
Ultimately though, however much blame that can be heaped elsewhere, the issue of road deaths cannot escape the typecast of being something that primarily affects, and is caused by, young people. At the risk of sounding like Peter Hitchens, it certainly seems that films and television have a large part to play in this glamourisation of cars as bass-pumping babe-magnets that should be enjoyed entirely for their own sake. Films such as Fast and Furious (which is awful even as a movie), as well as one show in particular that airs weekly on the BBC, have a lot to answer for.
I hate Top Gear with the burning heat of a thousand suns. I despise Jeremy Clarkson’s smug, self-satisfied political incorrectness. I loathe the fact that Richard “The Hamster” (as Stewart Lee has pointed out, he isn’t actually a real hamster) Hammond has eaten cardboard on national television. But most of all, more than any of that, I hate the sheer contempt the three stooges who present the show have for road safety. Series nine of the show was cat-littered with incidents in which Clarkson and his foils didn’t exactly try too hard to hide their disdain for their own or others’ well being. As the grumpy afroed one zipped across an ice field in episode seven, he was shown drinking a gin and tonic at the wheel. Clarkson’s defence? That they were in international waters at the time of filming, and were therefore surely entitled to glamourise that kind of behaviour, and then rub it in the face of those politically correct churls back home in Blighty. Drunk driving? As Alan Garner would say, “classic!”
Thankfully, the news is not as busy these days with reports of awful incidents that have happened out there on our roads. But the fact remains that they do still occur, and they occur for reasons that we can only speculate. Some things, however, are undeniable. The roads in many parts of this, a developed country, are quite simply shocking, and it is not up to the ones who suffer the resultant consequences to do anything about it. What all drivers must do, is at all times be careful and watchful when squeezed inside a dangerous and powerful chunk of metal. Don’t be sucked in by the media images of vehicles as anything more than a means of getting from A to B. It is quite likely that such pleas will go in one ear and out the other. But then, as Williams’ epic poem saliently concludes, “if you derive most of your pleasure, food and sustenance via cars, you’re going to defend them to death.” And death is precisely the end result.
