It was interesting to read that Finbar Crowley, the National Roads Authority's senior project manager, says that of all the road deaths last year, he feels "personally worst" over the death of David Garvey at Slane Bridge last February.
The NRA had been planning traffic calming measures in Slane for months, but had not implemented them (though everyone has known for years how dangerous that particular bridge is) by the time David was killed when an out-of-control lorry ran into the back of his mother's car. And this is the first time that anyone in sort of authority over our roads has ever expressed anything which suggests that there might have been something that the State could have done which might have saved life.
This is refreshing. So has Sylvester Barrett ever wondered how many people have died because of the initiative he took to allow people who had not passed their test to drive unaccompanied? Equally, has Michael Smith ever wondered about the numbers of lives that might have been lost because he authorised an increase in the general speed limit to 60 m.p.h. on all Irish roads, even the most wretched and meandering of goat-tracks?
Unqualified drivers
No other country in Europe has taken such imbecilic measures, yet these were implemented as public policy when even a moment's contemplation would suggest the likely consequence of unleashing unqualified drivers behind the steering wheel, or raising speed limits regardless of the qualities of the roads.
This makes Finbar Crowley's observations rather important. At least he has indicated a personal sense of regret over a death most of us would say was entirely avoidable, and would have been avoided had proper measures been implemented. What other public servant has expressed any regrets or sorrow about fatalities which might have resulted from the failure of public bodies to do their legal and professional duty?
Some court cases are in the offing in which insurance companies are going to sue local authorities for their failure to erect proper warnings signposts over the state of particular roads. But that will not bring back the dead; nor will it save those about to die because of the administrative delinquency which allows death-traps to remain death traps.
Take the little bridge on the side road leading to NUI Maynooth. On the far side of it is a large housing estate in which many students live. To get to the college they have to walk over the old humpback bridge which, though it carries a large volume of lorries, has no footpaths on either side. Pedestrians vie for possession with vehicles, some of which come over it at considerable speed, and effectively blind. Not surprisingly, a Portugese student was killed on the bridge when two lorries crossed the bridge at the same time as him.
Public authority
What happened after that? Was anyone in a position of legal or professional authority commanded to make the bridge safe for pedestrians? Was there an inquiry into how this poor young man died? Or is it back to where we were, with one life gone, and no one in public authority either caring or being made feel to care? And just how many pedestrians have to be turned into a bloodied pulp on the bridge before action is taken to separate human flesh from hurtling lorry? Now one thing you learn in journalism is modesty: the pen is nearly powerless, and those of who write for a living know how little impact we have. But just on occasion, one rather yearns to have just the little impact which suggests that (a) one is read, and (b) people in public positions are capable of responding to what they see in the media.
Some months ago I wrote that the entrances to the new extension of the M50 have a sign pointing in two directions, north and south, but without telling drivers what destinations lay in either direction. On a circular road, there is no natural way to know which option you should take. I vaguely hoped that some public serveant would have noticed my complaint and made it his business to have the additional information added to the signs. Silly, silly me. The north-south signs are still there, and motorists are still taking the wrong choice.
Sallins station
Nor is our fatuous signposting and public sloth confined to the management of our roads. Drive through the centre of the towns of Sallins and Kildare looking for signs to the railway station. There aren't any. Even the entrance to Sallins station doesn't have a sign telling the public what it is. It is simply unmarked, an anonymous hole in a wall.
Iarnród Éireann seems to have an aptitude for keeping its customers - i.e. its employers - in the dark. The platforms of Kildare station contain no information about arriving trains, and they are linked by a steep and barbarous old staircase which no slightly infirm person with a suitcase, never mind a wheelchair passenger, could possibly cope with.
And it really doesn't matter, because we have no culture of public accountability or liability. People die needless deaths because of our wretched roads, because of the high vehicle speeds which politicians have actively authorised, because pedestrians have no footpaths to walk on in so many villages. No outcry, no anger, no complaint, no shame, no blame. And so, no change.