Motormouth – the word on motoring -11/9

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Written by Staff Reporter

Thursday, 11 September 2008

So September is upon us and you know what that means. Yes indeed, the traffic will be back with a vengeance. The one good thing, if there are any, about the current economic “slow down” is that it should make the traffic flow a bit better as unemployed people don’t need to drive to work. In reality though when September comes, barring complete economic meltdown traffic comes too. For those of you who’ve been sailing through the tunnel or cruising down the Airport Hill without a care in the world this summer reality is about to bite.

The yummy mummies are back clogging the streets with their over-sized wagons parking at right angles in the middle of traffic light junctions. The lack of a northern bypass will once again turn the streets of Gurran and Hollyhill into a demolition derby on Monday mornings. Heavy trucks will try and squeeze down country lanes and parking will be the order of the day between the Bandon and Sarsfield roundabouts which wont get their flyovers until you are too old to drive.

But fear not dear Corkonian commuter. The stress of traffic jams, like all emotional responses is relative. While sitting on Parnell Place for 20 minutes maybe frustrating, or negotiating the Sarsfield Roundabout terrifying it could be worse, it could be much worse.

Pity the motorist driving through Swindon in England for the first time next week. We had our magic roundabout at the Kinsale Road until recently but you isn’t seen nothing until you’ve seen Swindon’s version.
It’s actual official name is the “Magic Roundabout” and this five arm junction actually has five roundabouts lumped together at its nexus. Its really impossible to describe but lets just say if you don’t like roundabouts, don’t go to Swindon.

Of course some people are fine on roundabouts, it’s the straight bits they don’t like, especially when they have to change lanes. Who hasn’t been cut up by some jelly-head on the Carrigtwohill motorway who thinks indicating is all you need to do before you cut across four lanes without looking?

But then again, at least you don’t have to deal with Interstate 405 running through Los Angeles California. This road carries more than 25,000 cars an hour and is, I’m told quite difficult to cut across. Possibly worse is Highway 401 in Toronto, Canada. You’d better be quick getting to your exit on this road because it’s 14 lanes wide.

When it comes to road safety though we can be a little hard on ourselves.

Ireland’s fatality rate is coming down, due mainly to our improving road network but spare a thought for drivers in India. Probably the most dangerous place on earth to take to the road where an incredible 75,000 people are killed in road accidents every year.

A bit closer to home, your are twice as likely to be killed on the roads of tiny Lithuania than your are in Ireland but if you really want to live move to Malta, the rate of road deaths there is only one fifth of that in Ireland.

Of course, more often than not you wont be going fast enough to kill yourself during the rush hour but there are delays, and then there are delays. We only have to look up the road to Dublin to see how what should be a 15-minute spin can be turned into a two-hour ordeal by bad planning and few coconuts in the outside lane.

If you are commuting in the Brazilian city of Sao Paulo however, it might be an idea to learn a foreign language of quantum physics during your commute. One hundred mile tailbacks (yes 100) are common in Brazil’s largest city due mainly to 2,000 new cars joining the melee every week in a city of 20,000,000 formed largely on hills and valleys.

Another nation experiencing a boom in car ownership is Russia. Moscow’s many ring roads have become infamous for the scale of their congestion. These ten-lane wide streets regularly com e to a complete stand still and one jam last year took 12 hours to clear so you could theoretically just leave the car in the jam, do a day’s work and when you return it would still be there.

So the next time you have to queue for half an hour to get through the Jack Lynch Tunnel, remember it could be worse.

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