Áilín Quinlan: I was so angry about idiots on our roads, I emailed the gardaí

D’you know what?

A few days ago, I turned on my indicator and prepared to turn right into the driveway of our home. Except I couldn’t.

Because I had suddenly spotted the big SUV behind me turning sharply to the right so as to drive both inside and around me, a trajectory that would more than likely bring it smash bang into the side of my car.

The towering behemoth started to make the turn, then jerked to a stop as the driver presumably thought twice about what the hell she was actually doing.

I stared open-mouthed at the woman, who was in such a rush that she really couldn’t wait the five seconds it would take for the car in front of her to turn into a driveway.

She stared back at me and raised her two hands in a ‘So what?’ gesture.

Look, maybe she didn’t mean ‘So what’?

How, in fairness, could I really know what she meant?

Maybe what this driver really meant was ‘Em, I’m so very sorry! What an amazingly stupid and dangerous thing to do! I could have hit you! I am so sorry for my insanely entitled and utterly thoughtless behaviour’.

Nope, I don’t think that’s what the driver was saying.

A few days earlier, I had turned out of the very same driveway to make the very short journey to our local pharmacy.

Seconds after I had driven out through the gate and headed down the road, I was confronted by no less than four cars, all being driven at dazzling speeds in the opposite direction.

The four cars were followed by a sizable lorry travelling at an equally high speed.

Each of these vehicles was well over into my side of the road, which, I should point out, does not have a white line down the middle, and which, I should also emphasise, is governed by a 60km/h speed limit for the very good reason that it is a quite narrow and very winding, country back road.

Although I did not have any way of accurately determining exactly how fast these vehicles were travelling, it was blatantly obvious, as they screamed past me one by one, that every single one of them was far in excess of the clearly sign-posted speed limit of 60 km/h.

There are very visible, red-ringed 60 km/h signposts at the bottom of that road, about half a mile from where they passed me.

I slowed my car, pulled as far into the side of the road as was feasible without damaging it, and came to a complete halt until they had all blown past.

Not one of them could have failed to see the traffic speed limit signs at the bottom of our road. They just ignored them and tore up the road.

They had no concern for, let alone fear of, any negative, let alone fatal, consequences for themselves or for anybody else.

This kind of harrowing experience has become an everyday occurrence on our road.

I re-started the car, drove to the chemist, collected the medicine, returned home, dosed the patient, and sat down at my laptop.

And I emailed the local Garda Divisional HQ.

I explained what had happened that afternoon and reported that this kind of insane speed was a common occurrence now that the road was, as everyone knew, a high-pressure rat run for motorists of all kinds, including high numbers of trucks, lorries, and international juggernauts.

All of these come belting down our road because it allows them to sidestep traffic delays on the main road.

Many of them behave as if they’re speeding down a motorway.

The thing is, I had previously contacted the gardaí about the problem of boy racers on this road.

The boy racers had disappeared thanks to the efforts of the gardaí.

The problem is many people who, if requested to do so, would more than likely describe themselves as decent people and law-abiding citizens, were blatantly smashing the speed limits and turning this road into a potential death trap.

I requested that something be done to force these road users to slow the hell down.

I got an email back the next day from a senior Garda officer who informed me that he was passing my letter on to the local roads policing unit. There is really nothing else I can do.

But, you know what? If every motorist who witnesses this kind of blatant breach both of the speed limits and of acceptable driver behaviour contacted their local garda station and/or their local TD, maybe the roads would become safer.

Maybe something actually would be done about it, if we all stopped being so resigned about it.

It’s beyond time for the garda authorities and the government to kick off a strong, well-financed, and effective crackdown - with sufficient personnel to monitor driver behaviour all over the country - to ensure that the current insane, yet absolutely commonplace motorist behaviour on Irish roads is pulled back into line.