Head Rambles

Grandad October 31st, 2007

It is a fact that 98% of all accidents in this country are caused by Other People.

The other 2% are the solo artists who manage to wrap themselves around a telegraph pole at two in the morning when there is no one else around. They are invariably teenagers, who are merely setting out to prove that Darwin is right.

For the rest of us, it is always the Other Bloke [or woman] that causes the accident.

Other People can broadly be divided into two categories - those that are driving cars/buses/lorries etc and those that aren’t. I will refer to the latter as Pedestrians, even though cyclists and motor cyclists are included.

Pedestrians are a great nuisance on Irish roads. They have tried to obtain rights, but fortunately they have only gotten as far as getting the odd Pedestrian Crossing installed. Irish motorists, of course, are delighted with these crossings as they afford a great opportunity to mow down a few more Pedestrians. The government has now started installing Pedestrian Bridges, as their income tax revenue was being affected.

The great rule of Irish driving is the POP rule - Priority Over Pedestrians.

Motorists have complete rule of the road and associated footpaths. Footpaths are there to be parked on and any pedestrian who complains should be run over immediately. Similarly, if a motorist actually wants to drive on the footpath he or she is fully entitled to do so.

Cyclists are a huge hazard on Irish roads and are rightly treated with the utmost contempt. They rarely, if ever use lights or adhere to the rules, so they get all they deserve. In particular, those people who insist on wearing that nauseating nylon cycling gear with a bunch of bananas of their head. It is perfectly acceptable to plead in court that the sun was reflecting off the gigantic black shiny arse that was wobbling in front of you. You can also claim clemency under the indecency laws.

Motor cyclists are to be treated with the same contempt as ordinary cyclists. The only difference is that they go 50,000 times faster.

Other drivers should be treated with caution. You never know when they might have a skinfull of beer on them. Or, worse still, they might be tourists. The only ones that are relatively safe are the SUVs. The latter are a class in their own as they tend to be complete dimwits who are only compensating for their personal inadequacies by driving such a yoke. They invariably haven’t a clue how to drive and are relying on their vehicle to keep them safe. They are safer, simply because you can spot them a mile off, and can expect them to do the least expected.

So the rule of thumb is, whenever possible, to drive when there is no one else around. And if there are Other People around, then treat them like idiots who are out to get you.

Because the chances are - they are.

• Learning to drive , On the road
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Grandad October 29th, 2007

Which side of the road should you drive on?

This is optional, but generally Irish drivers drive on the left. However, for a couple of hours each side of pub closing time, either side will do.

The most important thing to remember is - when you see a driver coming towards you, you go to the other side. Simple. This may prove tricky on a blind bend, but you have a fifty-fifty chance of getting it right, so don’t worry.

Originally, we all drove on the left. This was because everyone else drove on the right, and we wanted to be different. The U.K. had to tag along with us, because it would have been too awkward at the border with Norn Iron. However, this policy was officially abandoned in 2005 when Minister McDaid did the grand opening of the new policy.

Roads

Roads in Ireland tend to vary. In fact they go around a lot of corners and things.

Since Ireland discovered Money, there has been some investment in roads. This has essentially been concentrated in building Toll Booths. On the minor roads [i.e. anything that hasn't been designated a Motorway] there has been a lot of work done in the installation of pot holes.

Roads in Ireland are constructed with two criteria in mind - to cause maximum damage to the environment and heritage, and to cause maximum surprise. The latter is very clever, as they build stretches of motorway that lead straight into the middle of some God-forsaken village in the middle of nowhere. So the road goes from six lanes to the width of a car in a matter of seconds, with no warning whatsoever. Sleeping while driving is not a good idea.

The erratic nature of motorway building is explained by the fact that the Irish government uses motorway construction as a means to discovering sites of archaeological interest. To date, many fine examples of Irish heritage have been discovered through motorway building. Of course, these sites are immediately built over. We can’t have history standing in the way of progress.

• Learning to drive , On the road
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Grandad October 28th, 2007

There has been a lot of talk in the meeja [sorry - media] over the last few days about driving in Ireland.

For those of you who have been in a coma and have just come around [welcome back, by the way] - the government announced last week that, as and from Tuesday, people who hadn’t passed their driving test could no longer drive around as if they had.

This is a clever move on the part of the government [which in itself is a notable achievement], as it will solve the traffic congestion and parking problems virtually overnight by removing a quarter of all drivers from our roads. However there are now about 400,000 people who can’t get to work on Tuesday. And those 400,000 people are now suddenly facing up to the fact that they have to pass their test, or stay at home.

In some ways, this is an unfair move, as we all know that all Irish people are brilliant drivers from the moment they are born. And as soon as they are old enough, all Irish children get out there on the roads to show the rest of us just how brilliant they are. The sight of a 17 year old driving a souped up VW Golf on the wrong side of the road doing 170 through a series of S bends is something to behold. It would gladden your heart.

However the test is there to standardise the level of brilliance of our drivers.

As part of my ongoing commitment to public service, I have decided to help out.

For a start, I have arranged with the government that tomorrow [Monday] will be a bank holiday. This will give everyone a chance to practice their driving.

Furthermore, I have arranged for Dublin to be closed off to normal traffic for the day. It will only be open to learner drivers and marathon runners.

Lastly [but not leastly] I will be posting a series on How To Drive In Ireland. This series will be a practical guide on how to survive on Irish roads based on my 40 years of driving experience, and should be invaluable to both learner drivers and intending visitors alike.

So I urge you all to come to Dublin tomorrow. Bring your clapped out Fiestas. Bring daddy’s BMW. If necessary, steal a car. All are welcome.

You will have fun learning. You may come across the odd marathon runner, but don’t mind them. They are prats, and deserve to be run down. In fact, it will give you good practice in aiming at pedestrians.

I will be publishing my series in the coming days and weeks, until such time as I finish, become bored with it, or you are all dead.

• Learning to drive , On the road
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Grandad September 15th, 2007

When I was around four, I got my first tricycle.

I loved that tricycle. I used to scoot up and down the pavements and even the road, because there weren’t that many cars in those days. It was my first real taste of freedom, and I felt I could cycle to China, if only Ireland weren’t an island.

I felt important too, because my mother used to send me to the shops for things. I would go off on my tricycle up to the shop that was about half a mile away. I was much too shy to go in, but that wasn’t the point.

Imagine my surprise when Nancy in America sent me a tricycle! [I can't link to her blog because she doesn't have one which is a terrible pity]. It came in the post last week. It’s a little bigger than the one I had as a child. It has a seat for Herself and a place for Sandy.

We love it, Nancy. Thank you very much.

I used it yesterday when I had to box up IrishFlirtySomething’s blog and move it to it’s new home. It was great!

Herself took a photo of us. She was holding the camera which is why you can’t see her.

• On the road
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Grandad September 13th, 2007

You may or may not be aware that the pint is safe.

The E.U. in all its wisdom has decided that the U.K. and Ireland may retain our imperial measurements, like the mile and the pound [weight, not money] and the pint.

A couple of years ago, the government spent a fortune metricating our speeds on the roads. All the speed limit signs had to be changed and we were inundated with advertising and little reminder stickers to put on our windscreens.

I even got the instruments in my car metricated.

So where do we stand now?

I rang the Department yesterday to find out. I eventually got onto a very nice girl, but she seemed a bit upset.

I asked her what she was upset about, and she told me that she was sitting in the dark, because the new Green minister, John Gormley wouldn’t allow them use electricity as it was environmentally unfriendly. So she had no light or computer and hadn’t been able to update her Bebo account in weeks. I pointed out she could do that from home, but apparently she can’t find her way out of the office, because Gormley had the windows bricked up to save heat, and it’s so dark in there that she can’t find the door.

It seems she has been surviving all summer by eating memos and drinking Tippex. But she’s bursting to go to the loo.

I asked her what the situation was, now that we are back to driving miles instead of kilometers, and presumably speeding at miles per hour and not kilometers per hour. I asked if they were going to change all the speed signs back again.

She said that they still had all the old signs and were keeping them in storage along with the electronic voting machines. However, she said that they wouldn’t be replacing them again as it would cost too much, and would confuse too many people.

So they have decided we can interpret the signs as we wish. When you see a speed limit sign that says 100, you can interpret that as 100 mph, or 100kph.

She said she’d confirm that by email as soon as she could find her way out, and could get to the nearest Internet cafe.

So, in the meantime, I’m heading off for the nearest motorway to see if I can hit 120 miles per hour.

• On the road
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Grandad September 5th, 2007

I try to lead a quiet life.

Somehow the Gods conspire against this, and keep throwing weird things at me.

Last night, at around half eleven, I was sitting quietly contemplating the sounds of the night and the roar of the buses drag racing up and down the main road.

A bus came roaring along in second gear, and suddenly there was a loud bang, and total silence. It was if someone had pressed the mute button. It was the total silence that unnerved me, because double decker buses don’t just suddenly disappear.

I mosied out to see what had happened and there was the bus, parked in the middle of the road [on a sharp bend]. For about fifty feet behind it, the road was covered in the contents of his engine. There were huge gears, and universal joints. There were shards of broken cast iron. There was a bit of a drive shaft that was the size of a small tree trunk. And there was diesel fuel flowing down the road in a small flood.

There was also a rather bemused looking bus driver, sitting in his cab, pressing buttons and things.

“I don’t think that will do much good,” says I.

“I think you’re right,” says he “there seems to be something up with the engine. All the warning lights are on red”

I asked if there was a warning light to say that his engine and gearbox were missing, and he admitted there wasn’t. So I told him that they were scattered down the road behind him. He got out and looked.

“Fuck” says he.

“That about describes it,” says I.

So we rang the garage and we rang the police, because the road was nearly blocked and the river of diesel was flowing unabated. There was also a huge hole, about fifteen foot deep in the road, that hadn’t been there earlier in the day.

I realised it was probably one of my old tourist-bus traps that I’d forgotten about that had suddenly sprung. I didn’t mention that.

So we waited for the tow truck and the engineers and the police. We got very pally. I learned a lot about buses. Did you know that they removed all the Imp buses because they kept going on fire? Do you know that there are virtually no single deckers left? I bet you didn’t know that every single bus has nine high definition video cameras on board that record everything that goes on?

We had great fun waving down drunken drivers to stop them driving into the hole or skidding on the fuel or hitting any of the debris.

All the diesel fuel nicely poured into an Eircom manhole that was conveniently placed. Next time an Eircom technician opens a junction box down in the village, he is going to be swept away in a flood of diesel.

Eventually, a convoy of tow trucks and buses arrived. It was an hour after we called them. They were out there all night cleaning up the mess.

We’re still waiting on the police.

• On the road
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