UlstermanAbroad
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When I was going through police training in the 80's, I was driving home one Friday night in July or August and in front of me on an A road was a woman driver. I was in no hurry to get home, so I sat behind her for twenty miles or so, enjoying the tunes on the radio and slowly chilling out.
I watched her paint her nails, put on make up and do everything but pay attention to the road in front.
But then the piece de resistance.
We approach a busy mini roundabout on the edge of a small town and I see her start to brush her hair with a hair brush in one hand. Just as she entered the roundabout, the other hand came up and looking in her rear view mirror she spent the time it took her to traverse the roundabout, plus another few hundred yards other other side, arranging her hair with both hands.
I was too shocked to do anything. Unfortunately we hadn't done our firearms training yet, so I wasn't carrying the personal Ruger. 357 we were issued some weeks later.
Nobody was hurt. There was no accident. I saw infinitely worse things at accident scenes a few months later, but for carelessness and a certain amount of skill, I will never forget this.
Fast forward a couple of decades and I'm enjoying life, working as a management consultant, in different countries. I had the good fortune to pick up a long term gig in Cork, leading an FDI tech start-up that originated in Stanford.
Unknown to me, Ireland (the Republic of) only 'got' roundabouts relatively recently. Many woman drivers are terrified by roundabouts. Many male drivers are completely confused by them, ignore the painted lanes and simply take the shortest route across.
Add the fact that the government's answer to chronically long waiting times for driving tests around 2005/6 ish, was to simply give any driver who had been on L plates for at least a year, their driving licence without a test. This amounted to around 250,000 drivers. They used this tactic more than once in the last decade or so.
With many new types of roads and many, many unqualified drivers, driving in Southern Ireland is never dull. Which is why I bought myself a new Jeep Grand Cherokee in 2006. Added crash protection. Whether true or not.
I watched her paint her nails, put on make up and do everything but pay attention to the road in front.
But then the piece de resistance.
We approach a busy mini roundabout on the edge of a small town and I see her start to brush her hair with a hair brush in one hand. Just as she entered the roundabout, the other hand came up and looking in her rear view mirror she spent the time it took her to traverse the roundabout, plus another few hundred yards other other side, arranging her hair with both hands.
I was too shocked to do anything. Unfortunately we hadn't done our firearms training yet, so I wasn't carrying the personal Ruger. 357 we were issued some weeks later.
Nobody was hurt. There was no accident. I saw infinitely worse things at accident scenes a few months later, but for carelessness and a certain amount of skill, I will never forget this.
Fast forward a couple of decades and I'm enjoying life, working as a management consultant, in different countries. I had the good fortune to pick up a long term gig in Cork, leading an FDI tech start-up that originated in Stanford.
Unknown to me, Ireland (the Republic of) only 'got' roundabouts relatively recently. Many woman drivers are terrified by roundabouts. Many male drivers are completely confused by them, ignore the painted lanes and simply take the shortest route across.
Add the fact that the government's answer to chronically long waiting times for driving tests around 2005/6 ish, was to simply give any driver who had been on L plates for at least a year, their driving licence without a test. This amounted to around 250,000 drivers. They used this tactic more than once in the last decade or so.
With many new types of roads and many, many unqualified drivers, driving in Southern Ireland is never dull. Which is why I bought myself a new Jeep Grand Cherokee in 2006. Added crash protection. Whether true or not.
