Some are - simply put - too stupid to drive, claims Kilian Doyle
This would seem, with all the latest road death tragedies, an appropriate time to have a pop at the Government and its many arms for their failures in tackling the problem. Surely, you will say, they need a metaphorical kicking.
Sorry to disappoint, but I shall resist temptation. To be fair to the Government and Martin Cullen (not a sentiment normally associated with this column) it's not solely their responsibility.
Yes, they could do more to address the woefully inadequate driver licensing system, could focus more on education and less on churning out pointless Bill after unworkable Act after unenforced Amendment.
Yes, they could get the gardaí out from behind bus shelters where they're getting their kicks from shooting motorised fish in dual carriageway buckets and put them somewhere useful instead.
And yes, they could divert some of the massive €9.4 million a day they are spending on lining road-builders' pockets into providing a decent public transport alternative for rural motorists.
But none of the above will stop the carnage. Road deaths are, if you'll excuse the phrase, a fact of life. The only thing that will alter that is if motorists stop whining and take personal responsibility.
Gnash your teeth all you like, but the fact is Government ministers aren't sitting in the passenger seat egging people on to break the speed limit, aren't buying them pints in pubs and demanding a lift home, aren't daring them to overtake on blind bends, aren't phoning every motorist in the country and jabbering at them as they drive, aren't playing chicken with oncoming cars on dark country roads at 3am. (If they actually are, I want to know why nobody told me.)
While you, lovely readers, might be emotionally mature adults in full control of your faculties, a huge proportion of drivers on Irish roads are not.
Many young drivers appear to have failed to make the leap from operating a Playstation to operating a Punto, have yet to realise there are no extra lives or reset buttons when things go wrong in the real world. Inside their thick adult skulls are lurking undeveloped children's brains, the ones that make them want to act as they please with no regard for others or any concept of consequences.
Some are, simply put, too stupid to drive. So should we take the (in some people's eyes) Draconian step and introduce intelligence tests for drivers? I say yes. Why not?
It's not without precedent. Take Japan, for instance. The Japanese are, by and large, a sensible lot. Yet they share a similar problem with Ireland in that people of limited mental faculties - albeit at the other end of the age scale - are wreaking havoc on the roads.
The estimated 300,000 dementia sufferers with driving licences are causing a significant number of crashes, often because they're pottering around oblivious to traffic lights, road signs and all the other things one generally finds on roads. A survey of 83 such folk by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare found that over a third admitted causing a crash.
One octogenarian gentleman recently caused six different crashes in an afternoon by apparently confusing the accelerator with the brake. Easy to do at 82. Lots of 22-year-old Irish lads have exactly the same problem.
So the exasperated Japanese authorities have resorted to carrying out roadside senility exams. Aged drivers tootling around randomly, scattering all before them, are routinely stopped and subjected to memory tests. Fail? Their licence gets the bullet and they get the bullet train. Told you they were sensible, the Japanese. We could learn a lot from them.
All right, so the problem isn't so black and white. A wiseguy like me being flippant isn't helping. So I'll admit here and now that I'm as baffled as anyone else how to deal with the problem. Apologies for the above. It's just an idea. Somebody has to have one.