I don't know why I was getting upset about cars when I try to walk to as many places as possible
15 May 2006
Those in the Central Statistics Office did a good job in designing the Census form, but in our own case it's as well the Census only happens every ten years. One of the questions caused a considerable amount of tension and emotion.
We both filled out our own Person I and Person II sheets, very simple and uncomplicated. And most of page 2, the socioeconomic questions went well. Yes, we were attached to the public sewerage system, yes, we had broadband (made it into that category by about two weeks) etc. But it was question H9 that gave the trouble.
Question H9 asked "How many cars or vans are owned or available for use by one or more members of your household." Tick one box to say one, two, three, four or more, or none."
"What a pity they didn't have a box for people with eight cars between two people," I said. Argument followed; he said we only had seven. Foolishly, I said: "OK, can I take it that the red Fiat bits are never going to be reassembled into something resembling a car - is that a promise? We'll put the bits in the back of another car and take them to the Bring Centre and we'll take the windscreen which is on top of the wardrobe as well." The reply cannot be printed!
But it set me thinking about the question "owned or available" - these words were not necessarily compatible. "What about that other Fiat 500 which is in bits on the floor of a garage somewhere in Co Kildare - we own it, but it could not be described as available, nor will it be for a very, very long time."
By now I was getting warmed up, like a car. "And what about the Karmann Ghia?" I was delighted when the wife of the man who was restoring it got promoted to a really good job in Norway. The husband said he'd go off with her to learn Norwegian and play golf. He'd be back in a few months. That was a year ago - he must be fluent in Norwegian by now and I'm sure you can't play golf in the winter in Norway; it's covered in snow, for goodness sake.
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We had been out in another of the old dotes, a Tatra Plan, to a delightful Sunday lunch party in the foothills of Dublin. A good job it was downhill all the way home. At first we thought it was the dynamo, (although I was inclined to favour trouble with the regulator myself). Anyway, it wasn't something which could be cured by a running kick. So we got home and took the engine apart on the gravel in front of the house. Or at least he did. He was right, it was the dynamo. To be exact the brushes of the dynamo. Now, I ask you, was a car with a problem with the brushes of the dynamo strictly "available" on the night of 23rd April 2006? "I suggest not, my lord" - except one has to say "Judge" nowadays in court. Could one go out on an emergency call in it? No, one could not.
On to the large ancient Tatra. This was the limousine of the Comrades before the fall of the Berlin Wall. The Comrades must have had great peripheral circulation because the temperature in that part of the world is sub zero in winter and the heater isn't warm enough to keep my little tootsies from freezing in cosy Ballsbridge. The car now has two heaters - one Czech, one German - and a rug. Did you ever hear of a car with multinational heating systems? I agreed that since it was now April, we owned the car and it was available to him. Not available to me I should point out because steering it is so heavy that the one time I tried to drive it on an Autobahn in Germany I thought I'd never get into the next pit stop or whatever they call them in that part of the world. The trucks in Germany have worn huge grooves in the road and once I got into them I thought I'd be crossing the French border before I got out. So, as I said, that car is not available to this member of the household.
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Now, we do have two dotey little Fiat 500s, one a Giardiniera and these do go very well. But they are now fifty years old and collector's items. (Like the ones I described in the beginning are going to be when reassembled.) So, we do own these and they are available but there would be such weeping and gnashing of teeth if anyone laid a paw on them that I'd have to leave home. They appear at old car shows in aid of hospices which are civilised outings and I sit on the grass beside them like the trainer, while the owner polishes them.
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We're down to my fifteen-year-old Saab convertible, about which I feel like those who ride feel about a dear old cob or hunter. Owned and available to everyone who comes by, I felt I should really tick the box saying "one" but I didn't dare. Four or more it had to be.
May I point out we are money into the coffers of the state by taxing all the cars which have wheels and insuring them to add to the profits of an insurance company.
Why I got so concerned about cars I don't know seeing that I try to walk to as many near destinations as possible and avoiding cars is my real problem especially big ones.
In the edition of the British Medical Journal (BMJ) of 2 November 2005 there was an article by Dr Ciaran Simms (lecturer in mechanical engineering) and Professor Desmond O'Neill, (associate professor of medical gerontology), both of my own parish, Trinity College Dublin, pointing out the increased likelihood of fatal and serious injury to pedestrians over 60 if they are struck by Sports Utility Vehicles rather than more common or garden cars. They wrote that "public health professionals will need to work with transportation and road safety agencies to avoid the inevitable consequences of more vulnerable road users (older pedestrians) and more lethal vehicles. Our fatal accident reporting system database is not sophisticated enough to separate the results of SUV collisions from others yet. This may be changing. Articles in the Garda Review of 3 April 2006 suggest we are about to have more forensic examinations of fatal crashes soon. But for decades the US fatal-accident reporting system has had a detailed database. And, the BMJ article has many references to analysis of this database showing the relative danger to pedestrians posed by high fronted vehicles. I quote from the article - "for the same collision speed, the likelihood of a pedestrian fatality is nearly doubled in the event of a collision with a large SUV compared with a passenger car." Other studies have consistently shown higher rates, up to four times greater for severe injury or death for pedestrians in collision with an SUV.
I was delighted to see Dr Fenton Howell and other doctors calling for more action on Road Safety at the recent IMO meeting in Killarney. Perhaps, we could have a campaign to get those bull bars off the SUVs as well. A friend of mine recently returned from Australia said "roo bars", as they are called in Australia, aren't allowed in urban areas. When I brought this up in the Seanad, a wit asked if the bulls were in the vehicles or outside.
Senator Mary Henry, MD
