Does this ‘expert’ know anything?

Date Published: 04-Jun-2010

YOU know, sometimes I wonder about experts! Like the one who was quoted extensively in our sister paper, The Sentinel, last week as putting forward unique solutions to the traffic problems of this city.

He said we could reduce traffic congestion by 50% by individual action . . . and then went on to suggest the actions which might work. This was either a load of cobblers, or Irish drivers are such a crowd of morons and thicks that you can only expect the worst from them.

Now, I accept that, of course, if I used my car less, if I inconvenienced myself a little more, and if a sufficient number of people did the same thing, we could hugely reduce our car dependence, and whole areas of spending on new roads and infrastructure could be rendered totally unnecessary.

The expert was also quoted as having the theory that one of the reasons that traffic moves quickly, or speeds, is that people have, effectively, ceded the streets to the car. He cited as one of the examples of his contention, the fact that people had stopped their children playing in the streets, and said the cars had simply taken over.

He appeared to suggest that, if a sufficient number of drivers publicly promised that they would always obey speed limits, and then did so, then people might once again be able to allow their children to play in the streets.

This point certainly recalled a childhood spent playing in the streets for this writer . . . though the cars were a great deal scarcer at the time and there was only a fraction of the traffic. More importantly, people felt secure in letting kids out to play in the street. Nowadays, they must be supervised at all times and for all sorts of reasons other than traffic, so, in my opinion, the idea becomes impractical.

But the concept of the ‘moving speed bump’ was the idea that really caught my eye. The expert suggested that by moving at a moderate and legal speed at all times, local people could, in effect, become ‘moving speed bumps’ that would slow down traffic and help people reclaim the streets . . . and without the need for actual speed bumps, traffic calming and other such measures.

Now my personal experience is that anyone driving within the speed limit gets enough dirty looks in this city most of the time. You get the impression if you’re at less than 30mph, most drivers regard you as doddering. And some of the worst of the dirty looks seem to come from young lady drivers who now have even more testosterone than their male counterparts!

I tried a little experiment of my own on two days in Galway last week and the expert might like to hear of my experience and add it to his research store.

My first experiment was at the pedestrian lights at the Docks where I pulled up to allow a pedestrian across. Even though the pedestrian lights were not yet in her favour, she had stepped out a few feet on to the crossing. A gobdaw behind me in a ‘01’ registered car began blowing immediately and continued to do so. I was tempted to get out and go back and ask should I run the pedestrian down?

Chastened, but not yet fully persuaded that being ‘a moving speed bump’ was a bad idea, I drove on to Salthill and slowed-up and stopped to allow a woman across with a baby buggy. Of course she shouldn’t have been there . . .but it was a question of steaming through and not allowing her across, or pulling-up. I felt the situation was potentially dangerous and stopped.

Yes! You guessed it! – that same thick in the ‘01’ registered car was still behind me. He blew and began gesturing at me to move on! Maybe, I thought, this system of slowing down traffic is not for the average Irish driver such as that ‘01’ eejit.

Worse was to follow. A day or two later I was driving down Threadneedle Road, passing the entrance to Salerno, when a bus travelling in front of me pulled over and the members of a hockey squad and followers began to alight from the front of the bus.

They were ‘blind’ because they were crossing in front of the bus, so I remained stopped in the road behind the bus, allowing them to cross in threes and fours – as the bus driver signalled his thanks to me in his external rear view mirror.

One of the reasons I had stopped was that I had learnt my lesson a few weeks earlier when I passed a school bus in such a situation and the bus driver let me know in no uncertain terms what he thought of my driving! It was damned dangerous and I shouldn’t have done it!

On this occasion outside Salerno, however, a woman driver immediately behind my car began to hoot the horn and give me a very ‘bad time’. Then the other drivers of cars in the line held up behind her began to hoot the horns in a cacophony of impatient noise.

Again, I damned near got out and went back to the ‘lady’ driver, but in that kind of situation, all you do is make things worse . . . and cause an even greater hold-up for traffic. All of which makes me think that any so-called solution to the Galway traffic snarl-up which is based on courtesy, driving within the speed limit, and inconveniencing yourself, has about as much chance of working as appeals to Galway people to stop littering the streets, daubing walls with graffiti, and to scoop-up the dog poo on the Prom when their mutts defecate there.

I really don’t know how long I can keep up the courage to drive within the speed limit, wear my seat belt, and hang back when a potential traffic jam is building up – rather than plough into the middle of it and make it worse.