It was freezing as I left home. The roads had not been treated from what I could see. Not surprising as many counties have run out of funds and/or materials to carry out these works. But the roads weren’t overly bad and I arrived in plenty of time.

Kids wiped, changed and regaled with tales of a giraffe who can’t dance and a fox in socks I settled in on Twitter to watch the rest of the world get involved with alcohol, singing and hugging strangers.

Interspersed with count downs to midnight and reading Tweets about the weather I watched Google’s New Year Easter egg unfold, monitored the (lack of) breaking news and generally arsed about on the Web.

At midnight, as I slipped outside to see the fireworks, the snow began to fall. Light fluffy flakes that sparkled in the flickering Christmas lights hung above the doorway. All going well a crisp white blanket would soon be draped across the landscape. Magical, I thought, until I realised I had to drive home in it and no salting/gritting had been done.

1:15 came and the revellers returned. I brushed the snow off the car taking care to clear the roof in case that crisp white blanket came sliding down on the windscreen as I drove. And I made sure the lights were unobstructed. All the stuff you’re supposed to do.

I set out promising to return immediately if I thought the roads too dangerous. My own two eyes, previous experience and what I’d gleaned off Twitter meant I had a pretty good idea what I was facing – rough but doable.

Getting out of the estate and down the lane to the main road was easy as it hadn’t been driven on, though I could feel the car shimmy when it encountered ice where the snow was less deep.

The main road was somewhat different. The snow had been packed hard by traffic. A car in front of me and a truck behind, all three keeping our distance. Top gear, a light foot on the throttle and we all tipped along at 60km/h or so without much worry.

Approaching Naas things changed. First off was the small roundabout on the ring road. A damn nuisance in these conditions. No matter what you do, sudden sharp steering is unavoidable. Not good in snow.

Next up were the boyracers in their butt-mobiles practising their handbrake turns. They clearly had no comprehension that on hard-packed snow, with virtually no traction, that can quickly go wrong. And it did. One car spun, mounted the path and smacked off a litter bin. What if that was another car, or worse, a pedestrian?

My own fear was one would come to rest sideways on the road and I wouldn’t have enough distance in which to stop. That didn’t happen.

Though it nearly did. At the first red light, the car in front braked hard and slid down the slope. It came to a sudden stop as it hit the one and only clear spot in the whole town. I tapped and tapped on the brakes but couldn’t seem to slow and the cold sweats began. I considered flashing in the hope the other driver would realise what was happening and break the red. With nothing oncoming I thought of crossing onto the other side of the road. That’s what I’d do if it came to it, so I indicated as a warning. The car behind had already begun to edge over. Two Gardaí in the same predicament I noticed.

The lights turned green and, while relieved, I hoped I was going slowly enough to take the chicane at Murtagh’s Corner without slamming into the three expensive-looking 4×4s to my left.

There was worse than that ahead. The pubs had vomited out hundreds of drunken party-goers onto the street and it was obvious virtually all taxi drivers had stopped working because of the conditions. I expected this. It always happens. Great service our taxi folks provide, eh?

Main Street was like glass. Solid ice. With taxis like hens’ teeth and so many customers it was mayhem. People rushed and stumbled uncaring of their safety from one side of the street to the other at the sight of an approaching cab. Still on an incline, neither the car in front, the cops behind nor I could have stopped. Only by keeping moving were we maintaining any control.

The passenger in the Garda car had his head out the window screaming at people to stay on the f**king footpaths.

As the road rose up to the deserted main taxi rank stopping was both doable and done. This is where the snowball fight was on. One missile, clearly intended for my car, struck the passenger window. I watched in the rear view mirror and giggled as the cop hopped out and bundled my attacker in the back. (They let him out further down the town. Presumably the intention was to give all the snowballers a warning).

No snowball fights at the second, and equally deserted, taxi rank, but an unending stream of people staggering across the street. And standing on it which forced me to a standstill at the narrowest point. The boys in blue behind me flashed their blue lights and unleashed a litany of blue language. The way cleared.

From there to the M7/N7 was fine. Relatively. Back to the top gear and low revs trick and I tipped along. There were only a few cars on the carriageway. I nudged out to the centre of the three lanes thinking if I did lose control I would have more room to correct. Lucky move. As I passed under the J8 bridge I hit pure ice and the car fishtailed, sending me far into the left lane.

Except for a bit of bother trying to come to a halt on the slope down to my gate the rest of the journey home was uneventful. It took an hour in all.

While the thrill of my mini-adventure began to sink in something else slowly dawned on me: As I was about to set out, my sole source of accurate real-time information of what conditions were like was Twitter.

The most recent AA Roadwatch bulletin was from long before midnight. The black ice it mentioned on the M7 was hard-packed white snow when I reached it. Metcheck.com gave 0.0mm precipitation throughout the night. Local radio played music. Met Éireann gave vague warnings for wide geographical areas and their current weather was 30minutes after the fact, as was their precipitation map. Sites like the Irish Times, Irish Independent, BreakingNews.ie and RTÉ were either shut down for the night or were reflecting conditions from hours back.

AcuWeather.com came closest to the reality it must be said. And the National Roads Authority weather station info, while updated only hourly and with few monitoring stations, gave information on road and air temperatures from which conditions could be deduced.

But it was Twitter, with, I admit, a little help from the Met Éireann rainfall radar, best prepared me for what was ahead. The animated map gave me the general path the snow was taking. Tweets and some Twitpics, Qiks etc. from people I follow let me know in real-time in what parts of Dublin city and county it had begun and how much (deep) it was. Similar Tweets then came from further north in Kildare so I knew it was getting close.

Some searches on Twitter informed me of the state of the roads. The odd, very odd, Tweet from someone drunk in Naas; someone just home cursing the ice at a certain spot; someone watching cars skid outside their house. If it hadn’t been the aftermath of New Year’s Eve I’m certain the volume would have been far greater, but there were enough to prepare me.

In all, I enjoyed my wee adventure. And thanks to Twitter, and not the MSM, I knew I could make the trip safely. Without Twitter I could have had a restless night on a couch and have been wiping kids’ noses, changing nappies and reading more stories on New Year’s morning.

Members of the Vintners Federation of Ireland will loan out 30,000 hi-viz jackets, presumably paid for by FBD (Insurance), in 4,200 rural pubs nationwide. Mr. O’Brien reports that 10% of pedestrians killed in 2003 were drunk and lying on the road.

This latest initiative by the Road Safety Authority, dubbed Take one for the road, was announced in a press release by Noel Brett on Thursday:

Someone wearing a high visibility jacket will be clearly seen by an oncoming car nearly four lengths of a football pitch away (500 metres). This gives a driver plenty of time to react to someone’s presence on the road. If not wearing any reflective material the same car will only see you when you are a distance of 50 metres or half a football pitch away. At 100km/h a car will travel 27 metres a second. That means the car driver has just two seconds to react to your presence on the road. Not much time to react in an emergency.

Now, as a some-time motorist, some-time pedestrian and all-the-time critic of the RSA, let me tell you why all the above is pure and utter bollocks:

In 2003 – going by 5 year-old figures and a little mathematics – 90% of pedestrians killed were not drunk and lying on the road. That’s a Boolean AND, but nevertheless it means that while they may have been drunk OR lying on the road OR neither it makes us no wiser as to the circumstances of their demise. How many of the 10 or 90% were wearing reflective clothing for a start?

I ask as a pedestrian who does wear a hi-viz and knows full well it makes some but not a lot of difference in Ireland.

The behaviour I witness is that most slow down on sighting a bright glowing form in the distance. On realising it isn’t a Garda as they thought they resume their speed.

Worse are the motorists who don’t dip their lights approaching pedestrians. Someone walking can easily stray off their path when thus blinded. On rainy nights a glasses wearer is totally screwed.

Very few indicate. Even less indicate at pull out.

Mr. Brett states someone wearing a hi-viz can been seen from 500m. Yes, true. But that’s not worth a stocking of shite if the motorist doesn’t act appropriately.

And 500m? What sort of rural roads does Mr. Brett walk? Straights of 500m are few and far between on our winding twisting network. 50-250m visibility is more common. 50m gives little time to react, he says. Right. So even with a hi-viz the pedestrian is fucked.

Tagged to the foot of the press release is the oft trotted out advice to pedestrians:

Remember other road users may not ‘expect’ you and could therefore compromise your safety.

Hold on! Isn’t expecting the unexpected, anticipation, a core driving skill? A duty in fact? An obligation? See section 19 of the Rules of the Road.

As a pedestrian there are three things I fear most:

1. Bends. Frightening. The vast majority of motorists cut in tight, taking a racing-line, on left-handed bends not to mention disregard the rule obliging them to keep right of dashed yellow lines. Staying wide not only leaves room for pedestrians but also increases the motorist’s line of sight i.e. they will see an obstacle such as a broken down car just around the corner sooner. Furthermore, even when the hedgerows are cut low such that walkers are visible we are seldom seen – eyes are diverted down at the road immediately in front.
2. Tail-gating. Scares the bejaysus out of me. Tailing motorists can see nothing but the rear of the car ahead. Their view of road ahead is non-existent. Meeting a row of cars my attention is always focused on those behind the first.
3. Hearing the engine of slow moving vehicle coming from behind. Time to get out the nappies. The likelihood is that there is at least one motorist stuck right on its tail itching to get past. They shoot out to the right-hand side giving a wide berth. Tail-gaters of the tail-gater will follow sheep-like, totally unaware they are coming up behind a pedestrian.

I am fully convinced the RSA are resigned to idea that driver behaviour cannot be changed. That it is a lost cause and the only way forward is to remove obstacles out of drivers’ ways. Like the parents of an only and spoiled child they give them what they want, take dangers from their path and never admit their offspring is at fault.

Our little Johnnie, says Mr. Noel Brett, wasn’t speeding, cutting corners, not dipping his lights, not indicating, tail-gating, or doing anything wrong. That’s right, says his wife, Mrs. Gay Byrne, it was the pedestrian’s fault he got knocked down – they shouldn’t have been on the road.

Didn’t Mr. Brett and Mrs. Byrne adopt the same attitude they had when proposing curbing the use of farm tractors on the road?

Luckily I wheedled my way out of that and into Asia-Pac support which meant I could start at 5am and be gone from the office before these calls started.

It was fun. Every Friday, at 5:30am, I would get a call from one of my supportees wanting to practice her English. I would oblige with a phrase-of-the-day. Bollix. Eejit. Gobshite. Piss-horn. Feker. Diesel-dick. Every Monday she would call again to say she used it at Saturday English classes and the teacher didn’t know what it meant. I was obviously a much better teacher.

Another guy used be a salesman for Snap On – realising I knew of the company he asked if I had a Snap On tool. Yes, I have a Snap On tool. I have a whole set. My team never let me forget that one. I never remembered their pay reviews.

Oh they were fun days indeed.

The unfun part was the commute. The office was near the airport and while I could make it in 30mins in the morning, it could take more than an hour to get home. Signing up for EazyPass didn’t speed up passage through the toll bridge, but it did away with the fumbling for coins.

All was good for about a year. Then one morning the barrier wouldn’t lift. I drew back and approached again. No go. I tried a different lane. Same story. And I had no change.

Now this was when the world was young and long before the war, when mothers were beautiful and fathers were tall and kind, so there were no other cars and I was able to make my way across to the manned booth. Things are different now (though I did see some hotties picking up their kids from school yesterday) and even that early in the morning I would have a queue of honking motorists behind me within seconds.

The man manning the booth did what men manning booths do and sucked air through his teeth and hummed and hawed until finally admitting he hadn’t a bog’s-notion what was wrong. I could call the office later. I did.

It seems the EazyPass tag worked on the same frequency as Met Éireann’s weather station at the airport. It was over the wall from Big Blue Dolphin’s car park and every time the microwave dish squirted data back to the central computer, my tag turned on and began calling to a non-existent toll lane – yo, bitch, the Sneeze is a coming. Up with the god-dammed barrier, ya hear. The battery was dead.

The gave me a new unit and some free credit for the inconvenience. What lovely people NTR were to help me so promptly.

That October there was a day of torrential rain. Much like what we had Friday gone. Big Blue Dolphin had an emergency plan running to twenty pages. Lists of phone numbers. Location of first aid stations. Evacuation procedures (which wouldn’t work as, following 9-11, they’d bolted up all bar one exit – if a terrorist were to blow the place up, he’d damn well have to sign in at reception first).

This twenty page emergency contingency rescue fire-and-flood radiation-leak anti-constipation save-the-whale etc. plan sprung into action i.e. Everyone was sent home early.

The water under the bridges the M50 was so deep only the larger trucks were let through. Other traffic was diverted up the off-ramp and down the other side. The queues built up in no time. It took 3 hours to reach the toll bridge. By that time Really Superintendent Dibble of the Garda Traffic Corps had ordered NTR in his sternest tone to facilitate free passage of all veh-hee-ik-els through the toll plaza. I sailed (literally) past the raised barriers. What lovely people NTR were to do what his officership asked.

I had a pint when I reached home. Whiskey is for bereavement. Tea for shock. Pints for floods, heavy traffic and time off work.

The next morning the floods had yet to subside and the barriers were still raised. What lovely people NTR were to give me two toll-free journeys.

Lovely people my brown! When I got my EazyPass statement I’d been charged both times.

Personally, I am in awe at host’s ability to keep a straight face voice. If I were him I’d tell Johno, as caller number whatever he had won a prize that he could collect in person at the studio. Once there, I’d slap him about the head for a good week just for being thick.

When it was announced the topic for Monday’s show would be the new toll system I jumped for joy in anticipation. (Something not recommended when your knees are under the desk). The guest would be a representative of eFlow – one of the companies providing tolling services.

Trying to pick the most suitable provider and package is a daunting task. It makes mobile phone tariff selection seem a doddle. That, coupled with the teething problems since roll out, would make for one of the best radio phone-ins ever.

It was even better than I could have imagined:

The very first caller wanted to know why we weren’t told this was coming in? Brilliant! Weeks of media coverage. Every newspaper, radio and TV station ran the story daily. Ads for the providers were everywhere. It was discussed at length in small towns and built up areas and outside dance halls. This caller should really get out more. Or stay in more and read a paper.

The next caller complained he hadn’t received his tag. The eFlow rep patiently explained the system, apologised for any delay, offered to call him personally after the show and after some toing and froing realised the caller had ordered from a different company. But that wasn’t good enough – the caller wanted his eTrip tag now! And come hell or high water eFlow were going to get it for him. Makes sense I suppose – if you are the kind of person who calls O2 to bitch about your Vodafone bill.

Another complained that she couldn’t pay a toll in her local QuikiMart. The rep listed the chains, including FastiMart, that provide the service and explained QuikiMart had no dealings with eFlow. Not good enough, she moaned, the nearest FastiMart to me is 2 miles away. You should have QuikiMart do it. Right. So she can drive from the arsehole of Kildare through the M50 toll to the airport and back, but 2 miles is too far and stopping at any FastiMart she passes on the way is too inconvenient.

Someone else phoned in to ask when the new playground would be completed. The connection? Apparently there is one. See tolls are for the upkeep of roads. Kids are playing on the roads as they have no playground. If toll receipts were used to build playgrounds the traffic would flow better. Simple isn’t it?

Despite the host dropping hints like hot snots not one listener asked the really important questions: Why do we have tolling at all? Why are tolls dearer now? Why wasn’t there a price reduction when VAT was removed? Why the excessive minimum topup on pre-paid accounts? Why are some providers only serving one toll road?

I though the day was saved when someone enquired as to the charge for motorcycles. Free! boasted the rep. Something we’ve campaigned for. A health and safety issue – it’s dangerous to have such a small vehicle stop on a motorway*. The caller pressed on asking if he could reclaim all he had paid over the last five years. Eh, no.

This was local radio at its finest. It beats that highbrow chatter about the global economy and wars any day.

*At this stage the host was exhausted from gobshite-control duties. It never dawned on him the eFlow rep was talking pure bollox – the reason bikes are free is because the cameras can’t pick out their registration plates. Ditto for speed traps too by the way.

Head of the RSA, Noel Brett, said among the problems identified is that a 16-year-old can drive a tractor and trailer weighing more than 30 tonnes without a driving test and he was concerned that the vehicles themselves are not officially checked for road-worthiness.

What bolt of inspirational lightening struck Mr. Brett to prompt him question the suitability of archaic legislation in today’s world? Had he been en-route to a holiday resort in Damascus when suddenly he felt compelled to rush back to base, losing his deposit, and tell everyone there was something wrong? Fek it, lads, I’ve just realised these laws are so old, God could have legally driven a tractor when he was in short trousers.

The press release ended with a link to the RSA website from were the document could be downloaded. That I couldn’t locate it on the site for days didn’t surprise me – the RSA, like all State quangos, commonly adopt (to use an agricultural term) a cart before the horse approach.

It appeared a few days later, though was still difficult to find and the inclusion of so many paragraphs of statutory regulations made it not unlike the Lisbon Treaty on both counts.

A child could tell you it is wrong for a child to be driving a high powered vehicle on a public road. A child, seeing a tractor pulling a 30 tonne load hurtle toward it at 40km/h might cry out mammy, mammy, will it stop? That is clear. So what is the fuss about? What is really behind this proposed legislation discussion document?

A lot. A heck of a lot in fact.

Why do Irish farmers use, or appear to use, the public roads more frequently that their European counterparts? Historically, Irish farms were small for a number of reasons that I won’t bore you with here. To enlarge a farm meant purchasing more land, obviously, but the likelihood of securing adjacent holdings was slim. Farms became disjointed parcels. Land swaps, championed by Mary Coughlan during her time as Minister for Agriculture, designed to avoid the purchase and sales taxes, proved unworkable in the main. Bottom line: To get their work done, farmers have to use the public roads. Drawing comparisons with the UK, as the RSA do, is not comparing like with like (and is one of my pet hates).

It is patently obvious that agricultural contractors must use the roads to get to and from the numerous farms they work on and to haul produce (silage, grain etc.).

Infrastructure improvements in recent times has resulted in the construction of new roads with little or no provision made for agricultural traffic – new one opened, old one closed. Upgraded roads resulted in increased traffic volumes and speeds. The number of farmers using these routes has not increased but the number of motorists seeing them has, leading to a perception it has.

The use of farm tractors by the construction industry has distorted this further. Not only are they perfectly suited to the rugged terrain of building sites but they are capable of relatively high road-speeds – the MB-trac which ceased production in ‘91 had a rating of 40km/h but with some mechanical know how could be cranked up to 65km/h. 50km/h is the standard in today’s mid- to high-range tractors and the horsepower is sufficient to pull loads that articulated trucks do.

But the big bonus is they can be registered as works vehicles. This means far lower tax, insurance and more importantly, they can be run cheaply on rebated fuel (green diesel). Who can blame them? The cost savings are enormous.

Seeing what the builders were doing, some farmers and agricultural contractors began using their machinery in the off-season to transport construction materials and supplies. Who can blame them? The more hours an expensive machine can be worked the sooner it pays for itself.

It is the pseudo-farm tractors that the road users encounter most and that made the small child cry out.

The most crying is being done by another group – the road hauliers. They are required to be licensed, to pay higher tax and insurance, to use non-rebated fuel (white/road diesel), to equip their trucks with tachographs, to employ drivers with higher standard driving licenses, and so on. Who would blame them crying? They are the ones losing out most.

They are also a very strong lobby group. Is the RSA pandering to a strong group financially disadvantaged in this instance? Is the Road Safety Authority really concerned with a safety issue at all or is there political manoeuvring afoot? Let the hauliers have their way with this and they’ll give in on something else the RSA want implemented.

It is the safety aspect that is puzzling me:

- When founded in 2006, one of the RSA’s first projects was to review all legislation as pertaining to road safety. Aborted holiday in Damascus aside, how come they are only realising now about the issue of 16-year-olds driving tractors on the public roads on learner permits? Did it not occur to them during the revamping of the rules-of-the-road booklet?

- If the road-worthiness of agricultural vehicles is of such concern (and the farmers agree it is) why not also be concerned that road haulage vehicles are, for all intents and purposes, self-certified for road-worthiness? Any garage, or indeed, haulier, can be licensed to certify vehicles.

- Is a slow-moving vehicle on the public a hazard? The RSA say it has concerns about tailbacks caused by tractors on public roads but has no suggestion for how to address this. What are they really saying here? Is it that, yes, fatal and non-fatal collisions do happen, but the fault lies generally not with the tractor driver but with the absolutely horrendous driving standards of motorists? But they can’t say that. That would be admitting that 99% of Irish motorists, let’s face it, couldn’t drive a lawnmower never mind a car. Rather than forcing drivers to be alert to potential hazards it is easier to remove the hazard. No suggestion for how to address this is a prompt to the public to call for a tractor-ban.

- Are they concerned about a slow-moving digger or other works machine? The discussion document states the following: As they generally do not carry goods or pull a trailer, they do not give rise to any competitive issues in relation to road haulage however there are road safety issues to be considered. Note their concern for the haulage industry. Since when are competitive issues the concern of a safety authority?

A test introduced in 2000 offering us safer, cleaner motoring. It appears from the NCT website it also offers whiter teeth and prettier children. That’s what we all want, right? To be able to drive our beautiful offspring around in safety, smiling confidently in the knowledge we’re not screwing up the planet?

It seems to be working. No more do you see clapped out wrecks chugging along our roads pumping out black smoke. Does she burn oil? Aye, she would, if she got it. You don’t hear that gag any more. The last time I heard it I fell off my dinosaur laughing.

You seldom see cars broken down at the roadside. Unless they’ve run out of petrol, which the Automobile Association cite as their main cause for call-outs.

And people born since the year 2000 have whiter teeth. Fact.

So it is working.

The garages love it. Hi. I’d like to book a service. Is your NCT due? Why does that matter? Well, we’d need to check extra things. So you mean if you give my car just a regular service it isn’t safe to drive? Eh, no, it, eh …

[On slow days I call garages at random just to have that conversation. It cheers me up no end.]

In the eight years since it was introduced there have been changes to the system. Some good. Some less so.

Some things remain the same. The garages are still making a killing.

The one thing that has never changed, and probably never will, is the marked difference between the sexes while their cars are being tested.

I hate it when it starts like that.

That usually means I’m about to asked to do something soul destroying like go to Boots and pick her up a jar of Wrinkle-Eze™. And I can’t find it on the shelf. And I have to get help. And they snigger and ask is it for yourself, sir? And I might get embarrassed. Or I might get mad and think about slapping me lad on the counter saying something like take the wrinkles out of that. But I don’t because I’d get arrested and have to go to court. Mr. Sneeze, you are accused of one count of lad-slapping on a counter at Boots, a pharmacy, on Main Street at a time unknown on Thursday, June 19th. And more importantly I don’t because that isn’t the type I am and anyway there’s always the risk the assistant might hit me and I’d end up in wards one, two and three of the local hospital.

This time was to be worse. Far worse. Far, far worse.

We’re thinking of changing our car and I was wondering would you go look at these for us when you’re out – I’m stuck for time and you’ll be passing all these showrooms, she says handing me a scroll longer than a plumber’s waiting list. Get prices. I’m thinking, brochures, you could get brochures, she says.

Get stuffed, I’m thinking.

I dislike cars. I really dislike sales people. Combine the two and it’s like a green flag to a unionist.

I gave in eventually.

Howya. I’d like to take a gander at the Muzdy 5½ Tiddely Die loadza litres with go faster spots and room for a pony, please.

I just got one in yesterday. (They always “just got one in yesterday”). So what are you driving now?, he asks as we walk between the rows.

A 10-year-old green thing with a tape deck and four new tyres. Any clue where I can get blank tapes by the way?

Tapes?!?! Not the foggiest. Now there’s a reason to be changing for sure. (Big laugh and a wink at the receptionist).

The car’s grand. Just had the NCT. Submissions couldn’t be lower. High distinctions. Great extractions. All sorts of good results. A1s across the board if it was doing the Leaving. No way am I changing it for another ten years – it has new tyres. Now will ya just show me this jallopy so I can move on to the next ad for Windolene™.

Ah, I see. It’s for the little woman then. Better you do the looking – the little women don’t know anything about cars, heh, heh.

She’s someone else’s “little woman”, not mine. And as far as I’m aware she’s fairly genned up on cars.

The Muzdy 5½ Tiddely Die loadza litres with go faster spots and room for a pony is a pretty big car – you must have a large family. Ho, ho, good man yourself. Heh, heh.

Hello! Rewind the tape. (I forgot they don’t do tape anymore). Not my “little woman”. Just show me a Muzdy 5½ Tiddely Die loadza litres with go faster spots and room for a pony, tell me the prices – the list one and the real one, give me the bumph – full specs. not pretty pictures, and let me get going.

Dead right. Shur the little woman would be here all day asking me about colours. We’ll get the job done in jig time.

It was the same story in the other three showrooms.

… Four years previously …

With her car already sold, I volunteered to drive a friend around so she could look for a replacement. No matter how often either of us explained the car was to be for her, to be bought with her money, to be driven by her and that I was only tagging along, every single sales guy addressed the questions to me. If she asked about something, it was to me it was explained. Eye contact score: 90-10. And that was with me staring into space half the time.

Some things never change.

Why do people voluntarily participate in opinion polls only to click “Don’t know / No opinion”? Why did I say “click”, not “tick”, “answer” or “respond”?

All children, and some of the more inquisitive household pets, ask “why is the sky blue?” Why do so few parents or dog owners respond by outlining John Tyndall’s work on nephelometry. Is it because “Tyndall” is difficult to spell or nephelometry sounds rude or 19th century Carlow-born scientists just aren’t hip or they simply never heard of him?

Was George Boole the father of computer science? Or was it Alan Turing? Or Charles Babbage? Konrad Zuse? Howard Aiken? Herman Hollerith? Why is Vincent Atanasoff called the forgotten father of computer science if I remember his name?

Was Ada Lovelace or Admiral Grace Hopper the mother? How did they get time to write programs or find bugs with all those fathers milling around? Why is Hedy Lamarr more famous as a movie star than an inventor?

Why was Nice I rejected? Why was Nice II ratified? Why was Nice important? Why will the Lisbon Treaty be good for Ireland? Be bad for Ireland? Be good for Europe? Be bad for Europe? Why do we need a referendum at all?

I’m not asking for your answers. As readers, even if only of blogs, you have them. Or at least opinions. If you haven’t asked yourself the above questions, you’ve asked similar. The vast majority don’t.

Why is diesel suddenly more expensive than petrol? Why have property prices slowed? Why do we have such a poor health service? Why is Irish-made whiskey cheaper in France than here?

These are the questions asked by the majority. The road haulier; the house-seller; the ingrown toenail sufferer; the holidaying drinker. These are what matter now. Right now.

Holding a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty is a pointless exercise because most people just don’t care. It doesn’t effect them right now. The use of scare tactics by both the Yes and No camps makes great fodder for the media, but that’s about all. It won’t prompt them to investigate further. People are just so used to hyperbole that they ignore it. Both camps might as well run off posters warning “if you don’t vote Yes/No your knob/tits will fall off”.

Then came the Ryder Cup circus. I’ve written about that farce before and told you of the infrastructure upgrades that were hastily made at great expense. The road I mention was one of those upgraded.

When I say upgraded, I mean resurfaced, widened marginally and lined. It wasn’t upgraded to a higher route type. It remains a local link road not a regional or national route.

The Council engineers I chatted with at the time gave me the see what great things we are doing for you look. I gave them the you are destroying my neighbourhood look back. But they didn’t understand. They couldn’t see the long term consequences.

Where once there was a grass bank a walker could take refuge on, now there was nothing but an impenetrable hedge. Where once there were narrow stretches that compelled motorists to slow down, now there was no natural traffic calming. Where once there were humps and hollows and a few potholes, now there was a smooth flat surface. But the bends remained. The budget didn’t stretch to straightening works. Nor did it stretch to providing footpaths or cycle lanes. Why would they do that anyway? It was still a local/link route.

It had become a traffic-friendly road if there is such a thing. Cyclists and pedestrians beware. Of course, this is what the National Roads Authority intended all along – a route (a rat-run, albeit a long one) that would connect two motorways, the M7 and M4, and alleviate congestion on the M50.

And of course, the NRA didn’t say this publicly. They couldn’t be seen to condone the use of route unsuitable for that purpose. But they wouldn’t have to. The truckers would cotton on to it very quickly and they did. The HGV traffic quadrupled within weeks. The car drivers took a little longer to cop on. The white van drivers, the least bright of the bunch, followed.

The volumes and speeds shot through the roof. Residents who once had recessed entrances had had them shaved off by the widening. Their visibility when driving out their gateways was reduced, and in many cases, non-existent. The bends were still there and within seconds of driving onto a clear road they would have traffic on their tail blowing horns while they tried to pick up speed. The Gardaí could do nothing. Proving that someone was speeding is one thing, but proving they were driving at an inappropriate speed is all but impossible.

On one stretch of just 1km there were 20 houses. The residents complained bitterly about the situation. But as is commonplace in Ireland the bitter complaining is done over garden walls, in pubs and outside shops.

When the County Council advertised it was accepting submissions from the public as part of a review of county-wide speed limits only one of these residents responded. Me.

Within weeks the 1km stretch was designated a 60km/h zone and the signs erected. The traffic speed didn’t reduce. Irish drivers ignore them. Many never see them. Of the residents of the 20 houses, some have not yet seen these signs. A full year later and having told them where to look more than once they still claim not to have seen them. Yet the bitter complaining continues over garden walls, in pubs and outside shops.

With eyes wide shut, the only way to alert drivers to these speed limits is to have the Gardaí enforce them. They were always too busy. Until this week that is. I suppose that after 7 near fatal accidents caused by speeding within 12 months in 60km/h zone they realised something was wrong.

They had a squad car stationed on and off over a few days. They had an unmarked one other times though it was obvious what it was with a Garda in uniform beside it. These were the warnings to motorists. We are watching you. Slow down or we’ll get nasty. And they did. Get nasty, not slow down.

A battered white van pulled in at my entrance and Officer Dibble got out. A gatso van. Did I mind if he parked there for random periods over the next few weeks? Of course I didn’t. None of the residents would object to him using their entrances. We would all welcome it. It was about time something was being done. Once the word gets out about a speed-trap the traffic calms. For a few months anyway. A few months respite.

I was wrong about one thing.

- Fuk you, Sneeze! You are some bollix, screamed my neighbour – one of the 20 residents. Why’d ya let them bloody guards stop at your gate?

- Why wouldn’t I, Ian. Shur I was delighted to see them. I’m pissed off with wankers blowing me off the road when I’m trying to get in or out. You were giving out about the same yourself the other day. Maybe they’ll slow down now.

- You’re a fekin informer that’s what ya are. Licking up to the guards. I’m trying to do a days work. I can’t be crawling along all the time in the lorry or I’d never turn a shilling.

- Jayzez, Ian, you were glad of the guards the night your young lad heard men downstairs and yourself and herself were out in the pub.

- That’s different. They should be out catching fellas robbing and selling drugs and not giving out speeding fines to a decent man trying to feed his family.

The Gardaí recommended the foreman discretely monitor the tank levels to find out how much was being taken and how often. After a couple of weeks it was clear that every two or three nights about 100l was going missing.

I was asked to stake out the place for a week. With the promise of overtime I naturally jumped at the chance. Plus I was given a mobile phone. A mobile phone! It was the ’80s remember and mobiles were big clunky contraptions with a handset wired to what looked like a car battery and just as heavy. Even car phones weren’t available in Ireland back then. It was all very exciting.

My first night as Primal PI I hid my van behind a stack of pallets at the side of the compound and waited. Christ the boredom! My watch crawled. Had it stopped? No. The clock on the dash read the same. I was only there an hour. How would I do seven nights of this?

I needn’t have worried. A car pulled up. The driver unlocked the gates to the compound and drove in. A small truck followed soon after and made it’s way toward the tanks. I made the call – my first ever mobile phone call. I got my instructions.

As the visitors were about to leave I started the van. At least I tried to. Panic set in. I’d forgotten to set the ignition to heat first and the engine just wouldn’t fire on cold diesel. Set to heat. Count. 1 … 2 … slowly damn it! … … 3 … … 4. It fired. But I’d been seen. Sweat. Cold sweat. Shaking hands. I gunned the engine as all good TV detectives do and sped around the corner. Gravel flying from the wheels. I parked right across the entrance, turned off the engine and jumped out.

Only now did it dawn on me what I’d let myself into. What was I to do now? My instructions were to block them in but I was told nothing more. What if they forced me to move the van? I locked the door and tossed the keys into a hedge. Fek, that was a mistake! What if they came to attack me? I would have no way to escape.

A figure approached. Ah Primal. It’s yerself. What are ya doing here? We never see you in this yard? It was the plant manager – the foreman had been wise to go straight to the owners.

Ah howya Pat, I croaked. I was driving by and seen the lights on.

Fair ball to ya, Primal. Eh, this man here ran out of diesel and I was giving him a drop to get him as far as a garage. Move that auld van there ’til we let him out.

By now I was shaking like a leaf. What was I to say? Do?

I was still stuttering incoherently when I realised we were now surrounded by a mass of blue flashing lights. One of the cops – a local one I knew – pulled me aside to calm me down. Who were the other people, I asked. Customs and Excise, he said grinning. They’re going to dip both [the manager's and his guest's] tanks. We reckon he [the manager] has been fuelling up half the knackers in the county. And helping himself to a drop too.

The following day I was still rattled. My legs went to jelly and my voice croaked again the day I had to stand up in court and testify against this man. A man I thought I knew. A man I’d drank with at company parties. A man whose house I’d been in once. A man whose son I’d been to school with.

I had listened as evidence of other charges was given. He had been fuelling his own car with red diesel – I had guessed that. He had been stealing red diesel and selling it – I was the key witness that. He had been burning the stolen diesel in his home heating system. He had been siphoning off company money by producing fake invoices. He had been found in possession of stolen goods. Goods that allegedly came via the same individuals he was selling diesel to. And some more that I forget.

One of the Gardaí remarked outside the court later that if they’re at one thing, you can be sure they’re up to a hundred others.

I was reminded of this story by the report this week that the Revenue’s customs section had seized 301 vehicles in 2007 on which VRT had not been paid. Of these, 49 were top of the range cars, on which €1.25m in taxes and penalties was recouped. What was of major interest though, was that many of these cases resulted in full tax audits which recovered a further €1m for the State’s coffers. Just like that Garda said all those years ago, if they were guilty of one offence, they are likely guilty of more. The revenue people realise that.

The same scenario applies elsewhere. Take a politician who is found to have accepted a bribe from a property developer to have land rezoned. Asking what else he has taken bribes for is a reasonable question. It is highly unlikely he is specialising in rezoning bribes.

Take the motorist that is fined for driving at 110km/h in a 100km/h zone, on a good road, in good conditions and with little traffic. Very unfair might be your immediate reaction. But isn’t this the same driver that will do 80km/h in a busy 60km/h? And 65km/h in a 50mk/h in the rain? And 40km/h in a 30km/h outside a school. Your reaction to his being fined for those offences isn’t that it is unfair. This driver hasn’t made a policy decision to speed in 100km/h zones only and that he’ll obey lower limits. And does he specialise in speeding offences? I would doubt it.

Take the builder that installs inferior windows that begin leaking a year later. It would be wise to find out what other poor work he has done. If he is cheating the home-owner, who else is he cheating? The taxman probably. His employees too. If I were to tell you the only thing is ever does wrong is using inferior windows you would laugh at me.

No one who flouts a particular law or ethic flouts only that. It makes a fair case for the so-called zero tolerance.