Respect for Life on Our Roads

by

By Most Rev. Dermot Clifford, DD,

The news that the road deaths for 2006 were the second lowest in forty years is to be welcomed. It would be wonderful if it is the beginning of a downward trend. But the death of one person every day of the 365 is still completely unacceptable.  On the one hand we rightly condemn the recent spate of gangland murders and say that they indicate a loss of all regard for human life. On the other hand we seem to accept the carnage on our roads over the past forty years as unavoidable. This carnage, however, also shows a serious lack of respect for human life, since many of the deaths and injuries are avoidable.

Looking at the 367, who lost their lives in road accidents in 2006, I could count twelve whose funerals I had attended or whose homes I had visited to sympathise with grieving families.  Two, a man and a woman, were pensioners and pedestrians.  Nine were teenagers, some as young as fourteen and fifteen, and one had just celebrated his twenty-first birthday.  Five of the victims were girls.  I expect that these roughly reflect the larger picture in relation to age and gender across the county.

The loss of teenage sons and daughters, in particular, brings huge sorrow to parents and family members.  Many parents regularly lie awake at night hoping and praying that their children will come home safely from their night out.  The garda and priest, who arrive at their door in the small hours, do not have to say a word as the parents’ worst nightmare unfolds.

While these good parents are people of faith who believe me when I try and console them with the thought that their boy or girl is with the good Lord and will one day welcome them to Heaven, they say, “I know, but I’d rather he was here with us”.   It is a reversal of the natural order for parents to bury a son or daughter whom they have reared for sixteen or eighteen years. The Confirmation photographs are often taken out during my visits to recall a joyful occasion, so full of hope and promise for the future.  There was an empty chair and fragile emotions in many a home on Christmas Day when the family sat down to dinner.

The three main causes of the largely needless carnage are alcohol and drugs, speeding and tiredness – the three unwise men of the Holy Season!  The cure for each of these is in our own hands.  An excellent New Year’s resolution would be to abide by the rules of the road, never drink and drive and take regular stops to make that call on the mobile, to rest and to prevent tiredness.

Speed is an exhilarating sensation as we older people remember from our youth.  It is a great temptation for young people.  Young men like to impress their girlfriends by fast driving and to boast to their pals.  Ní thagann ciall roimh aois.  “You can’t put an old head on young shoulders”, but we have to advise them to slow down, in season and out of season. That is what older people do.  A recently bereaved father told, on national radio today, of his last words to his son as he left the house to go to word.  “Mind yourself”.  The garda and the priest were at his door shortly afterwards.

Girls could make a significant contribution here. They could refuse to sit into a car with any young man who has taken drink or drugs or with any young man who shows off by speeding. This might make young men change their ways.

It takes years of experience and many thousand kilometres before a driver of a vehicle is able to cope with an emergency. There is a world of difference between being in the bumpers and being in a car crash and it is a difference I should not like young people ever to experience.  I know young people relate to the poems of e.e. cummings, perhaps because he was so unconventional, showing no regard for capitals or commas and perhaps also because he was texting long before his time! 

                        old age stick up keep off signs

youth yanks them down

                        old age scolds forbidden stop mustnt dont

                        youth goes right on growing old

The sad thing is that so many do not even see out their teenage years.

The older generation have some serious issues to deal with also.  The objections, which some of them have made to random breath-testing, in rural areas in particular, need to be addressed urgently.  Undoubtedly, the life-long habits of many middle-aged and elderly country men have been seriously challenged of late.  Social life, as they knew it, with the weekly or more frequent trips to the pub, has come to a sudden stop.  The rural publicans are feeling the pinch.

A local councillor, a parishioner and friend, got himself into hot water lately by stating in public that the Gardaí should concentrate on boy racers and let the men who drinks three or four pints in their local of a night go on their merry way, as they have always managed to do, never injuring anybody in the few miles they know so well. ”Country road take me home!”

The councillor was expressing a view which is fairly general, I would think, in rural Ireland at the moment.  People I have met on my rounds agree with his views but would not state them publicly.  This shows that there is a need for a radical change of outlook, a social revolution of sorts in this area. Many young people have no difficulty in operating a designated driver system.  The older rural people should adopt this system also.  They should recall how they “cored” with their neighbours long ago, (obair i gcomhair), helping each other with harvesting and sharing horses and machinery. They might resurrect the past to good advantage now. All it means is that one drinker confines himself to soft drinks one night in four in his turn!

A publican in my native parish of Ballymacelligot which is as rural as any parish in Cashel & Emly ferries his customers to and from his premises in a minibus for a modest fare. Coca Cola have recently introduced a novel system of designating certain pubs where the designated driver is given some complementary soft drinks.  Perhaps this idea could be taken up also by the drinks companies and the publicans?  I have always said that the country people are the custodians of the common sense of the nation. Country people must not be found wanting when it comes to playing their part in ensuring road safety. “You know it makes sense”, as Derek Trotter (of Only Fools and Horses) is wont to say.

The day is fast approaching when the alcohol limit will be as close to zero as makes no difference.  That cannot but be a sane and sensible change when one considers the totally unacceptable rate of road carnage in Ireland over the years. If, as a nation, we were to rest content with the present rate of road deaths and serious injuries, we would be failing in our duty of care and in respect for human life. A climate needs to be brought about within which people will be ashamed to admit to drink driving or to boast about their speeding exploits. The decrease in the number of fatalities since the random breath-testing was introduced in July last is proof that it is having the desired effect.

There is a story about a teacher who asked her class in the primary school to give an example of what would be a sin for them. One little boy said “to steal from the supermarket would be a sin”. When asked to explain to the class why it would be a sin, the boy replied, “Because there are cameras all over the place”.  There will be cameras all over the roads, 600 in fact, if reports are correct. These cameras will produce very expensive photographs! Seriously, the Catechism of Catholic Church states: Those incur grave guilt who, by drunkenness or a love of speed, endanger their own and others’ safety on the road. (No.2290)

How would any driver like to have to face grieving parents who had lost a son or daughter because of their drinking or speeding?  God forbid!  The substantial reduction of road deaths to perhaps one third of the present rate is a task in which every single person, young, middle-age and old, drivers, cyclists and pedestrians can share.  In doing so, we are showing our respect for human life. So, to repeat, there you have your New Year resolution!

Finally, perhaps, the secret to road safety lies with courtesy.  Common courtesy should not be suspended when we sit behind the wheel.  As Hilaire Belloc wrote:

                        “Of courtesy it is much less

                        Than courage of heart or holiness,

                        But in my walks it seems to me,

                        That the grace of God is in courtesy”.

I wish all fellow road users good health and safety in the New Year.