Speed is such a buzz. Foot to the floor, slamming back in the seat, engine snarling, tyres weela weela wauling, oh yes.
You’re on the very edge, pushing faster, faster, faster, every sense maxed, every muscle tuned. Total focus, everything is outside the frame, HAS-TO-BE, because every fibre, every neuron is fixed on the job in hand, going as fast as you and your car can go.
Why is Top Gear so popular? Testosterone, not Toblerone, that’s why. Why do people watch cars squealing and sliding around the countryside? That’s why. Why do young males rob cars and drive them helter-skelter across the country chased by as many cop-cars as they can gather? That’s why.
Why do young men from many walks of life modify their cars, stripping out seats to make them lighter? That’s why. Why do you feel so ear-bleedingly, hysterically buzzed up after a circuit of Mondello? That’s why.
Some people know, even members of the police. I remember talking to a Garda after my car had been demolished by joyriders and he said, “some of these young fellas are brilliant drivers, just brilliant. Utterly fearless.”
Ah, yes, fear. That’s part of it too, to have and show no fear. Think Cheyenne, think Masai, think manhood. Think rites of passage and great feats. Savage! Think free running, extreme surfing… Think of the legend – JC drove from Cork to Clonakilty in 44 minutes at 3am with the lights off.
Fuck! Think of the myth.
No Fear! That’s why some play chicken. Is it common? Well, it’s more common than you think and is certainly a factor in road deaths.
I’m not saying that inexperience isn’t a factor too. It is, and especially when a buzzed up newly-qualified driver pilots a car he still doesn’t really trust, at night on a road he only knows in the daylight, and with three more people on board than he practised with…
It doesn’t handle the same, it takes longer to stop, is harder to turn… And even if he’s sober the others in the car aren’t. Go on, fuxxake, go on! Go on ya molly! What’ll it do? And it’s all the worse if another car is disappearing into the distance, its occupants woofing and tweeting their disdain at the pussies behind.
What can you say? Just this:
Speed is some buzz all right. But road deaths are terrible and sad and tragic beyond words. Someone you love is there one day and gone the next, as like as not broken, twisted and shattered, sometimes almost beyond recognition. And bad as it is with anyone, it’s worst when it’s young people, if only because of the lives cut short, that great energy and life-force lost, just like that.
In the last weeks we had three 17 year olds killed in two crashes on one night in Tipperary and Dublin. Two days later five young men died in a crash in Monaghan. There have been many more amongst the 400+ deaths this year south and north.
Yes, it isn’t just young Irish men. There’s been a significant number of crashes involving immigrant workers like the four Latvians who died in a two-car crash in Donegal. This cued an outbreak of self-flagellation in the Irish media. Given that the crash happening at a notoriously dangerous spot, was it about the state of our roads? No, it was about having an economy that attracted these poor workers here to die so very far from their homes.
Talk about missing the point. Many of our roads aren’t fit for tanks, much less cars travelling at speed, in the dark, in the wet, crammed with four or five young people, each as wild at heart as the next.
Nobody who has attended a funeral of young people killed in a crash doubts the need to do something. But what? All the enforcement measures are in place, all the penalty points, random breath testing, the lot. Yada-yadda.
Liveliners and broadsheet letter writers fart and fume that they never see a copper on traffic enforcement duty. But why should they? Apart from trucks, which seem to operate largely outside of the law, the driving that causes mass fatalities happens when all good Liveliners are in their beds.
If you don’t know that and if you don’t understand the savage buzz of speed, its pure addictiveness, then you’re better off keeping your own counsel. To change behaviour you have to understand.
So here’s a thought. Let’s give all drivers under 30 three things:

1. a meeting and discussion of what a licence actually is and what responsibilities it brings
2. an advanced driving training course at a discount, cost to be offset against their insurance
3. a voucher for ten hours high speed driving at Mondello. And anyone who doesn’t want to use theirs can sell it on to someone who does. That way an addict could buy his fill and safe speeding could be commodified.

You might, rightly, fear the adrenaline and testosterone-fuelled crazies who careen lightless across the countryside. You might also fear for your friends and relations when the buzz is up. You might rightly say that something’s gotta change. But what’s failed before will fail again. If we really mean to change we’re gonna have to step outside the box.