We loaded up the car, with luggage, my better half, our four month old son and the mother in law, and set off uneventfully through the deserted streets towards the Ennis Road, our journey punctuated only by our taking time to snigger at the odd girl in a mini skirt tottering home, or a random drunk person chancing to flag us down thinking we were a taxi. When we got to the Coonagh roundabout we spotted blue flashing lights ahead. As it turned out someone had clipped the new roundabout at speed and flipped their car onto the roof. There was a single squad car there and the guy was out of the car standing at the side of the road, so thankfully there was no one hurt. So, the most I could think of was ‘Sucks to be him’ and kept driving.

Im not sure how many of you will be familiar with the road between Limerick and Shannon, but before you get to Bunratty you pass Setrights Cross, identifiable by a pedestrian bridge crossing the road. There is a sharpish left curve and a blind right straight after it over a crest, which is something that would be considered a high risk on a normal road but not something you think about on a nice Dual Carriageway. Coming around the left curve, I am on the outside lane, overtaking a toyota, and I see lights coming over the crest through the hedge around the blind right. I immediately realised something was seriously wrong here. I used to work in Shannon, so the road at night is familiar to me, and I knew that it was not something coming from the east bound lanes. remember, Im coming around a blind corner in the right hand lane. I jammed on the brakes and swerved into the left hand lane, missing the tale end of the car I was trying to overtake by a matter of milimeters, and the jeep that was doing at least the speed limit in the WRONG DIRECTION on the dual carriageway by even less. He had to swerve onto the grass to avoid me and the on coming traffic behind me.

I’ve heard legends about this sort of thing, but I never believed that in my lifetime I’d ever see anything so patantly stupid and deadly. What I dont understand is how he managed to get there in the first place, and how he managed to get that far. The nearest on road in several km away in Bunratty and he must have noticed the oddity of having to take a few sharp turns to get onto the slip road. Looking in my rear view mirror I saw him come off the grass verge back onto the road before he dissapeared around the corner. Herself was straight onto the phone to the Gardai.

The thing that stuck with me is, if I hadnt known that particular part of that road so well I wouldnt have seen the danger untill it was too late, and instead of reading this you would probably be reading it in the papers this morning, thinking, sucks to be him, His Mrs, His Mother in Law and his four month old son. Sucks to be them indeed.

 Last week I was going in to get some groceries in the supermarket, when I came around the corner and nearly crashed into the worst incident of idiocy I have seen in some time.  An MPV, on a double yellow, half up on the footpath on the bad side of a corner thats dodgy enough on a good day. I parked in the free car park that was on the other side of the footpath that this idiot had half parked on, and took out my camera phone to take a few snaps for posterity. About three pics into it a blond thirty something comes running out, saying she was only there for a minute, she is leaving now blah blah blah. Then she looks again and asks, ‘Who are you?” I said I live here, there is a free car park right there and if people like you keep doing shite like this someone is going to wind up getting killed. I didnt shout, I just said it because I meant it. And I think she picked up on this and kinda knew she was in the wrong so didnt get angry or anything.

So, I went about my business, got my groceries and came out about fifteen minutes later to see she had moved her car into the free car park. Now if only more people were willing to stand around armed with cameras the residents may be aboe to solve this problem once and for all!