It is nearly a year since the car crash which brought unbelievable tragedy to two connected families. At the time, I thought that the State's complicity in the deaths of two married sisters-in-law and one of their daughters would cause such a wave of revulsion that decisive action to prevent young, unqualified drivers from driving unaccompanied would follow.
I was wrong. Our politicians seem to have weighed the electoral consequences of enforcing the law, and decided they would lose too many votes by doing so. So nothing was done, and so more people have died on our roads. At least in death, they will not vote against anyone, unlike the group from which their killers come, and this seems to be the major political influence over the creation of road policies.
Needless death
Who remembers Josephine Kelly? Why remembers her daughter Lisa? Who remembers Josephine's sister-in-law, Sandra Kelly? Apart from their immediate families, almost nobody. In a couple of weeks' time, Josephine's widower Sammy and his four surviving children, the youngest now aged three, and his brother Pat, and his four children, the youngest now aged eight, will pass the first anniversary of the utterly needless deaths which brought ruin on them all. How have they passed that year? Who has minded their children while they worked? Who has collected them from school? How did they pass Christmas? What will they do on February 21st, to mark the day catastrophe came to call?
The needlessness of the horror which has engulfed them is truly shaming. Josephine, Lisa and Sandra were out walking down a country lane near Castlecomer. A car rounded a bend out of control and killed all three. The driver of the car was 17. He had received his provisional licence only the previous week. He was driving unaccompanied.
And why was he driving unaccompanied? Because, in part, the Government allowed him to. It is just over 20 years since Sylvester Barrett, in perhaps the most cretinous political initiative in the history of the State, decided that people who had failed their test twice would be allowed to have a full driving licence. From that foot so witlessly allowed in the door, the population of people who have not passed the test but are allowed to drive unaccompanied has grown to 250,000. It is now one of the largest special interest groups in the land; and though it slays all around it, no politician dare seem brave enough to take it on. It could even form its own political party: it wouldn't be the first one in the Dail to defend its right to kill.
Official figures
Not merely does neither the State not wish to take this group on, but it seems studiedly determined not to discover statistics about it. Though deaths on Irish roads continue to increase, in violation of undertakings to the EU, according to the National Roads Authority, the status of the licences of only about half of the drivers involved in crashes is actually known, making official figures almost meaningless. Of that known half, 55 per cent are unqualified.
Extrapolating from that criminally small sample, we can make minimal assessments. Since 30 per cent of all road deaths involve drivers under 24, and we know that at least 55 per cent of such drivers have provisional licences only, we can say for sure that no fewer than 70 of the people killed on roads died in crashes caused by unqualified young drivers. The figures might be far, far worse. We simply don't know, because there is simply not the political will to discover the truth. We don't even know how many young drivers have full licences.
This is the sort of fecklessness which tolerates the presence of so many unqualified drivers on the road in the first place. Though the law requiring provisional licence-holders to drive in the company of a qualified driver still stands, it simply isn't enforced. So the actual practice of the law means that a 17-year-old, with no driving experience, can get into a £50,000 sports car or a £20 banger and simply drive away.
There might be some sort of terrible justice involved in young people killing themselves, though I myself don't see it. But what about the deaths of others, such as the blameless Kellys?
Unqualified drivers
How many deaths are directly attributable to the State's refusal to impose the rule of a law which, if enforced, would exclude a quarter-of-a-million unqualified drivers from the road? How many Dail seats are vulnerable to the electoral rage of excluded provisional licence-holders? And how many people this year will be killed on our roads because of the policy of propitiating this group?
And if we are so keen to appease people by a selective application of the rule of law, why isn't such latitude shown towards the abuse of drugs, which kill and maim far fewer people every year? Why does the State say to a teenager, yes you can drive that big lethal car, without any experience or expertise, and endanger the lives of ordinary people around you, but no, you may not inhale that joint, that cocaine, that heroin, which at the very worst, endangers only you, the taker?
One year on: who remembers the Kellys?