Emissions/Kilian Doyle: I'm sure it's come to your attention that over 1,200 young male drivers have opted to let their insurer - AXA - fit a tracking device called the Traksure to their cars, which records their speed and driving patterns using a Global Positioning Satellite.
In theory, it's a top idea - submit yourself to constant surveillance, be picked up on every single indiscretion and accept the consequences accordingly, without recourse to appeal. Three strikes and you're out. But, in return, you can save a potload of cash, which you can then spend on alloy wheels, plastic spoilers and other assorted bits of nonsense. Everyone wins, eh?
But I just find it a bit odd, even in my increasingly bizarre existence, that these supposed "rebels" - at the feet of whom so much of the blame for monstrous premiums for everyone is laid by insurance companies - are accepting this motorised chastity belt so readily.
Just think - they're throwing away all the joys of cruising through 30 mph zones at 60 mph. Or the simple pleasure of pulling handbrake turns in school playgrounds in souped-up Honda Civics with blacked-out windows, full to the eyes with Bacardi Breezers. So, does this mean Ireland's 18 to 25-year-old geezers aren't such reckless hooligans after all? Are the insurance companies just lying to us? Perhaps. But figures from - funnily enough - AXA show that the very same drivers who have submitted themselves to this supervision are beginning to speed up again, following an initial rush of blood (and sense) to the head when penalty points were introduced all those months ago. Now, there's a surprise.
Incidentally, all the press talk is of "young men" and the danger they pose. All right, so the figures show the vast majority of accidents involve males under 27, but the notion that girls are impeccably behaved behind the wheel is as outmoded as Bono. It's not just boy-racers. Women are well-capable of ripping up tarmac too, thank you very much.
Speaking of penalty points, have these monitored fellers no fears of the cops getting a hold of their records and busting them retrospectively?
And I'm just waiting for the first blackmail letter threatening to inform the driver's girlfriend he was clocked doing four miles per hour along Dublin's hooker alley, Benburb Street, on a Friday night unless €5,000 in used notes is left in a dustbin on Jervis Street.
It's all a bit 1984, isn't it? Who knows where it could lead. I'm no paranoid freak - ignore the feller who told you I was, he was sent by aliens because I repeatedly rejected their attempts to probe me - but it does have some pretty sinister implications.
Current military technology is so advanced that they'd developed missiles that can pinpoint you exactly by picking up signals emitted by your mobile phone. Lord alone knows what they could do to a car.
But then again, I suppose we've got it easy. At least here being spied on is voluntary. Spare a thought for the poor British motorists who may, in the next few years, all face mandatory tagging, enabling the government there to monitor all journeys on Britain's roads and charge users accordingly.
Compulsory smart cards would be fitted to all 24 million cars in Britain and they would be tracked from the sky. It's caused a ruckus, understandably, among civil liberties groups. "It is something that smacks of big brother," the AA said.
"The government would know where and when everybody in the country was travelling." To the polling station to vote for the Tories, one imagines.