Speed is fastest way to attract all the wrong sort of attention
A Different View with Dave O’Connell
IT is childish and immature and nothing to gloat about – but when someone shoots past you on the motorway and three minutes later you see them pulled up in front of an unmarked Garda car with flashing lights, it’s hard to resist, at the very least, an internal smile.
And so it was that last week’s Garda Operation ‘Slow Down’ brought two such experiences along the M6 motorway as a pair of budding James Hunts found their land-speed record attempts pulled into the pits – with penalty points as their prize.
Equally – if we’re honest – the second emotion that passes through your body as you cautiously drive past is one of relief. Because few of us could honestly say we live our driving lives under the speed limit.
We’ve all found the dial pushing past the limit – inadvertently or deliberately – and, therefore, feelings of smugness are probably inappropriate when it’s someone else who gets caught.
Our two Galway-bound speedsters weren’t the worst offenders on the day, as a quick look down through the Gardaí’s own speed league illustrates.
Step forward, for example, the driver who marked Operation ‘Slow Down’ by hitting 153km/h in a 120km/h Zone on the M7 outside Ballybrittas in County Laois – edged out only by the motorist caught doing 154km/h in a 100km/h Zone on the N20 near Grenagh in County Cork.
Some of those listed on the Garda Press Office release might be judged unlucky – 65km/h, 79km/h or even 65km/h in a 50km/h Zone or, more locally, 70km/h in a 60km/h Zone on the R336 at Na hAille, Indreabhán. But that just debunks the myth that you’ll be grand if you stay under the speed of sound.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.