Volume 1 (1999/2000)
Issue
1 (March 1999)
Issue
2 (Nov. 1999)
Issue 3 (Dec. 1999)
Issue 4 (Feb. 2000)
Issue 5 (March 2000)
Issue 6 (April 2000)
Issue
7 (May 2000)
Volume 2 (2000/2001)
Issue 1 (Sept. 2000)
Issue 2 (Oct. 2000)
Issue 3 (Jan. 2001)
Issue 4 (March 2001)
Issue 5 (April 2001)
Issue 6 (May 2001)
Volume 3 (2001)
Issue 1 (Sept. 2001)
Issue 2 (Nov. 2001)
Categories
Sport: 1
2 3
Lifestyles: 1 2
3
Commentary: 1 2
3
Review: 1 2
3
Writing: 1 2
3
Event: 1 2
3
Death on our Roads
Barry Lysaght
Glenstal Abbey School
The number of deaths on Irish roads is showing no signs of diminishing.
Young men, sometimes underage, are increasingly the victims of their own
carelessness and constitute more of the dead than any other group in society.
But what is to be done in the wake of these horrible accidents?
Many voices are raised, many emotions are felt and many accusing fingers
are pointed in many different directions. Is it the parents' fault for
letting the boys out at night? Is it the boys' fault for being naive enough
to drink and drive? Is it the barman's fault for supplying the boys with
drink? Is it the alcohol industry's fault for portraying drink as the
sole ingredient to a good night out? Is it the Government's fault for
not curbing this advertising? Is the County Council at fault for not making
safe precarious black spot areas long ago? Or do we even blame our inherent
pub culture for the liberal attitudes to alcohol abuse?
As American writer Gertrude Stein said, "What is the answer?...In
that case, what is the question?" The problem is that we don't really
know where to begin in combating road deaths effectively until we know
just why it is that our roads are the most lethal in Europe. One response
to the dangers was the series of shocking advertisements from the National
Safety Council, portraying the horrific aftermath of 'drink driving'.
The aim was to frighten and shock people into refraining from drinking
and driving by showing horrific images of children crushed under flying
cars, upturned and battered vehicles, bloodied bodies, gruesome physical
injury; all subsequent to the unsuspecting grin of the tipsy driver as,
fatally, he lets his concentration lapse.
However, in a survey conducted in February on the target group of these
ads - male drivers in the 18-35 age group - the ineffectiveness of this
campaign was made evident. The majority of the group surveyed said that
the advertising would not turn them away from drinking and driving, as
the ads were over-gory and unrealistic. They claimed they couldn't see
the gruesome tragedies depicted on TV befalling them in real life. So,
the NSC got the message that they ought to tone down and hone in their
campaign on more realistic road accident scenarios, but this is only the
tip of an exceedingly big and cumbersome iceberg.
The resounding response to each road killing is pathetically repetitive:
"Something Must Be Done". In the 72 hour aftermath of every
disaster, Ireland seems united in declaring war upon these 'careless killers',
but when it comes to firing any meaningful bullets, we cower, wilt and
skulk back to how we were before, only now there is one more bereaved
family. As Martin Fischer once wrote, "Whenever ideas fail, men invent
words". In the aftermath of the tragedy, the words used in newspaper
articles and by politicians are all the same: the "final straw",
"action now" and "never again".
The atmosphere of temporary outrage practised by the disaffected public
is a dangerous one. We are willing to offer our condolences as a formality
but, the day the death of a loved one rocks our lives, sympathies take
on a whole new significance. Now, when we say it cannot be allowed to
happen again, we really mean it, for the pain of bereavement is like no
other. I can only hope that meaningful steps to assess the causes of so
many road deaths does not require every family in the country to experience
bereavement as a result of road deaths. Judging by the growing numbers
of deaths on the roads, that is an all too real possibility.
There is no doubting that there are no easy answers to this very difficult
and very real problem. However, by doing nothing but cluck "tut-tut"
in order to sound compassionate, we are only adding to the possibility
of further road accidents and delaying that day when we might experience
one. Until the Celtic Tiger's bite is made as ferocious as its roar, more
families, communities and lives will be destroyed by our own recklessness.