Key tenet: Animals like speed. This is why Rover sticks his head out of the car window. The human animal is no exception. All governments can do is manage this. This costs lots of money.

Addendum to the Key Tenant: Normal people like cars, and not just as white goods. 2007 statistics show there are now 2,296,393 vehicles on the road in this republic, an increase of 157,713 or 7.37pc on 2005 total.

UPDATE TO BELOW: Laws now added, but will they be enforced??
Irish Independent Oct 07

We now have in Ireland:

• high tech, new, safe, regularly tested cars, with airbags, ABS, traction control, etc. NCT Inspection List
• improving N roads; rest of them are shite, but only German tourists use those, right?. NRA National Route Activity 07
• decidedly low tech drivers: over 400,000 card carrying incompetents: Irish Times Aug 06; Irish Independent July 07
• questionable approaches to relieving the huge backlog in completed driving tests:Irish Independent Oct 07, Irish Independent Aug 07 and yet again: Irish Independent Dec 03
• a stubburn bunch of Klingons that refuse to wear seatbelts: "Ya cannay change the laws of physics"; as of April 07, only 86% of Irish drivers and front seat passengers here wear seat belts. This compares to 97% of French drivers.
• Lots of needless death: Irish Independent Aug 07

Always amazes me that:

• We are more concerned by what status & registration number that a given car has, than by how it is driven. In the old Ireland, this was just a symptom of pure envy, & expressed as such; of course now we dress this up in the language of environmental concern. Irish Independent Sept 06

• You can drive without passing any test in this country. Simply apply for a provisional driving license, & you are set for 3 years. I am not making this up: Irish Citizens Information

• However, the law stipulates you cannot drive unaccompanied (by a full license holder) on years 1 & 3. This is never enforced. What about year 2, I hear you ask? Not required. Baffling...

• This Republic did not have a Ministry Of Transport until very recently (Mid-2002). Quelle surprise!

• We are throwing up housing estates all over the country in months that have to wait 10 years for road markings or signage to get to them. This is where most of our children hang out. Irish Independent Aug 07

Statistics:

• According to the European Transport Safety Council 2007, Ireland is 6th from bottom of EU road safety table for reduction in road deaths between 2001 & 2005, ahead only of such leading lights as Poland, Hungary, Cyprus, Malta & Lithuania.

• Yes, small kids have to die before anything changes. Nearly half of all child injury deaths in Ireland were caused by road traffic accidents, reflecting an upward trend since 1994 (Department of Health, 2000).

Insurance:

• So many manual gearboxes are sold in cars here as a conscious choice! Surely given the limited abilities of the average driver in Ireland, automatics would be far the better option. I firmly believe that manual cars have more accidents than automatics: I maintain that a stick-shifter & clutch combo is far more of a distraction than a mobile phone. I further believe that insurance premia should start to reflect this. This would, in turn, lead to safer roads.

• In any case, the key reasons that people give why they prefer manuals (being in control, more performance) are the very things that are not exhibited by them as drivers in the real world.

My theory, based largely on Irish population demographics:

1. A core of mediocrity in driving standards which lead to dawdling & indecision on main roads, especially among middle-aged & senior motorists. These people clearly fly in the face of nature (see the key tenant above)

2. A "yoof" culture fuelled by Playstation drifting, idolising anything with a Vtech engine on 4 Yokohamas.

The above, combined with remaining single carriageway main roads, leads to fundamental speed differential of approx 50 kph. A recipe for disaster...

Incidentally, this duality is also reflected on Irish radio: all the stations are geared for one or the other group. Go ahead, have a dial-surf & see.



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