SOME months ago, I did a number of Living Word reflections on RTÉ Radio One.
They were inspired by people I’ve known whose particular experiences reflect a wider social phenomenon. One of them was ‘Molly’ (not her right name) who lost her son in one of those depressingly familiar accidents where a combination of adrenalin and a sense of youthful invincibility combined to rob a mother of her young son. This is what I wrote:
Every night she lies awake, begging God for sleep, watching moving pictures on a silent television, to distract herself from the raw, bloodless wound that knows no healing.
The moon struggles to light up a darkened world as souped up cars driven by virile young men splay headlights around the countryside, as if random lighthouses dotted the nightscape.
In the distance she hears the screech of tyres on tarmac and, now and again, the dull throb of a car radio advertising some youthful dislocation to the world.
He still lives for her, she can’t imagine that he won’t come home; her sleeplessness a silent waiting, a vigil punctuated by the sounds of other young men living on the edge, pushing their machines to the limit.
Sometimes in a dream-like trance before sleep comes she imagines that somehow it might be possible to turn the wheel that short millimetre of difference, to re-edit the last tape of his life.
Her God has left her to carry the burden on her own. She cannot forgive Him for not being there when it mattered, for not moderating the confluence of fateful events that conspired to rob her beautiful son of his life...
This night and every night she watches his bedside picture, and she longs for the scent of his body, the frazzled hair, the wry smile, the long, loping stride, hugging to herself the sounds and the sights that together etch an image that haunts her nights and worries her days.
Eventually, darkness envelopes her as she falls into a deep sleep, and she dreams of cars returning from the mountains, the signature revving, the beat of the music, the lights slung low, the sudden shift of gears. Soon, please God, they will be home.
All over Ireland, and particularly now in the Inishowen peninsula, there are mothers like ‘Molly’ (and fathers and siblings too) grieving the loss of their young sons and brothers. People trying to come to terms with a pain that is beyond words and a suffering that will stretch into an indeterminate future. It is truly a life sentence.
But what can be done to prevent this personal, family and community grief that threatens to overwhelm us? How can we even begin to understand what part of the underdeveloped male psyche is missing that a souped-up car is needed to supply the deficit?
Why do young men, full of angst and insecurity, drive low cars at impossible speeds as they seek attention, if not admiration, from the rest of the population.
Indeed a wider question is: what is it about the car that induces such testosterone-fuelled immaturity once a man, almost of any age, gets behind the wheel? Why has driving at speed not just a ferocious grip on a huge percentage of the male population but also the implicit support of most of the rest of the male population?
But even if we did understand it, what can we possibly do about it? If someone had a gun and was known to be messing around with it on a country road at 3 o’clock in the morning, wouldn’t we expect the gardaí to descend upon him in spades? Yet what has to happen to convince us that a car is a lethal weapon?
There are a number of problems dealing with this. One is the curious indulgence of society with boy-racers, even when it’s clear that they are well on their way to an almost certain rendezvous with death – their own or someone else’s.
Another is a belief that the gardaí are excessive if they pursue them, even that the gardaí are encouraging them to speed if they follow them. And a third is the expectation that courts should deal gently with them.
What it all means is that society is not prepared to take the action that needs to be taken to address the situation and the price we pay for that is the ensuing carnage, as recently on the Inishowen peninsula.
Because unless action is taken, firm and committed action, then we have no one to blame but ourselves.
Someone told me recently about a young man who was driving at excessive speed and who ended up in the rehabilitation unit in Dun Laoghaire, paralysed from the neck down. His motor-crazy mates decided to visit him, three of them racing their cars across several counties to Dun Laoghaire! And then they talked about their escapade to the poor man lying on his back.
That represents the task ahead. In other words there is no point in trying to convince these adrenalin-fuelled young men about the importance of road safety. No point whatsoever. No matter how many funerals of their mates they attend. No matter how often they visit the Dun Laoghaire rehabilitation facility. No matter how many shocking adverts are screened on television. It’s all a waste of time. Because once they get behind the wheel of a car they become different people.
There are many things as a society we could do to stem the haemorrhage of young life.We could mechanically ensure that cars are incapable of doing more than, say, 70 mph.We could mount a systematic and sustained garda campaign to get boy-racers off the road. We could force the courts, through legislation, to introduce punitive measures like jail sentences that would act as a real deterrent.
(Better for them to visit their mates in Mountjoy Jail rather than in Dun Laoghaire Rehabilitation Centre or in the local cemetery.) We could even ban motor-rallying for an indefinite period.
We won’t do any of that, of course. Because it would be impossible to garner any support for what might present as admirably sensible suggestions. All of that is too extreme, too intolerant, too denying individual rights, too much stepping on too many toes.
It would save lives of course. It would limit that anguished pain of parents who have to bury their own children. It would allow people like Molly to get a night’s sleep. But it doesn’t matter really, until the post-midnight knock comes to our own door.
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