Áilín Quinlan: It’s so bad on our roads, I can’t trust zebra crossings any more

I don’t trust zebra crossings anymore. Because of this.

One morning, as I prepared to step onto the familiar white lines, a car approached.

The car slowed and stopped, and as nothing was coming from the other direction, I started to cross.

However, a second car pulled up behind the first car. The driver of this was too impatient to wait so he zoomed out around the first car and narrowly avoided hitting me.

So, no, I don’t trust zebra crossings anymore. And I’m not alone.

You couldn’t not know how much driver behaviour has changed in the last two or three years.

Last year was the darkest period in more than a decade for road deaths. There were 190 fatalities in 2025, 22% of which were pedestrians.

Crashes are an accident waiting to happen, people say – and it’s hard to disagree, given the endless tail-gating, the undercutting, the last-minute lane-changing, and the crazy speeding motorists engage in now. It’s become normalised.

It’s nothing to do with the roads. It’s to do with the people.

As I write, a garda road safety campaign, which began at the start of December, is still underway, targeting dangerous driving and focusing on drink and drug driving.

In just four weeks, more than 600 were arrested for drink/drug driving. Gardaí detected drivers reaching speeds of close to or even over 200km/h, way above speed limits.

Let’s be brutally honest here.

If things are this bad on the roads while drivers are being closely monitored, where is the road traffic surveillance for the rest of the year?

Dangerous drivers are not being caught because of a lack of staffing and resources in road policing units, and as a result of these, a lack of presence.

Those few that are caught all too often walk free from court with no more than a tap on the wrist. Much of the time, to my mind, it doesn’t even amount to a slap.

And there’s another thing.

Cyclists are not supposed to cycle on footpaths. Yet, they’re doing it wholesale.

I have yet to see a local authority erecting big yellow signs on walls warning that it’s illegal to cycle on footpaths.

I have yet to see a garda stopping a cyclist tearing at speed – and silently - down a heavily used footpath.

They need to have their bikes taken off them.

For God’s sake, would somebody - the government – local authorities – the gardaí - ever take a stand on this?

In the meantime, cyclists tear along footpaths with impunity.

I tackled a wonderful specimen of young Irish manhood about this before Christmas.

Wearing a cycling helmet, the kid belted up behind me on a footpath and raced past without any warning, almost colliding with an elderly shopper a few feet in front of me.

I called out.

He stopped.

I explained he’d almost knocked down the old woman. He expressed not the slightest reaction.

I politely requested the teenager, who I estimated to be no more than 16, to cycle on the road instead of the pavement, explaining that he should not be on footpaths.

The youngster smirked and raised his forefinger.

“May I speak?” he inquired condescendingly.

“No,” I said briskly. “You’re a big boy now and wearing a cycling helmet. Get off the pavement, it’s illegal to cycle on the pavement.”

As I walked away, from his pouting rosebud mouth issued forth a volley of profanities.

Our young flower re-mounted his bike, crossed the road, and proceeded to continue cycling brusquely along another pavement, cutting through more pedestrians, who all, without a murmur, gave way.

Not yet out of his mid-teens, I pondered. Showing no care, respect, no consideration and absolutely no remorse for almost running down two women on the pavement – though, I noticed, he was careful enough about his own safety to wear a helmet. While cycling on a pavement.

This young lad already believes he is above the rules and there was not a garda in sight to inform him otherwise. A few years on, this fellow will be in a car behaving the same way.

Here’s what we don’t need:

Pedestrians, motorists, cyclists and other road-users left injured or dead every day in the wild west that is now the Irish road network.

Pledges from politicians of a ‘renewed focus’ on road safety.

Pleadings for better motorist behaviour from an under-resourced and under-staffed gardaí traffic corps.

Outpourings of outrage from commentators like me.

The complacent belief that these occasional high-visibility, garda traffic campaigns are somehow quite sufficient to manage the insane behaviour on our roads.

Here’s what we need:

Minister of State at the Department of Transport, Seán Canney, to demand - and get - funds to be allocated for the following:

The urgent installation of speed bumps and road calming measures in all towns and villages burdened with through roads.

The installation of raised zebra crossings so that traffic is forced to slow down.

A good example: The main road from Bandon to Bantry, running through villages and towns like Enniskeane, Ballineen, Dunmanway and Drimoleague is a race track.

Despite electronic signs pleading with them to slow down, cars, tractors, lorries, trucks and juggernauts tear through these residential neighbourhoods as if they were not there, complacent in the knowledge there is little risk of garda surveillance.

We also need:

Visible signposting warning against cycling on pavements everywhere, the introduction of fines and the confiscation of bicycles from those who put pedestrians at risk.

A very significant boost in staffing, resources, remuneration, status and the introduction of real incentives for garda road traffic policing units.

The introduction of plain-clothes garda roads policing units.

The introduction of a constant garda presence on the roads year-round (and not just for well publicised campaigns),

This would consist of traditional, visible roads policing units as well as plain-clothes traffic police.

In other words, a well-resourced, well-staffed and highly effective visible and invisible system of roads policing which is a constant presence on all of our roads.

This monitoring would include regional roads, local roads, and all roads connecting towns and villages.

Gardaí would make it a priority to get to grips with the hair-raising behaviour of giant SUVs, big trucks, juggernauts and super-lorries thundering through villages and towns and along narrow, winding country roads which were never intended to be used by such vehicles in the first place.

It’s time.