Emissions Kilian DoyleLast week's decision by the Equality Tribunal to award €2,000 to an 80-year-old man who was refused insurance on the grounds of age left me in somewhat of a moral quandary.
I confess my initial (ageist) reaction was one of sympathy with the insurance company - which is an emotional state heretofore unknown to me. As I said, I was mighty confused.
My prejudiced head told me this was unjust to the insurance business - it is after all little more than a conglomeration of glorified bookmakers trying to make money. And are bookies not allowed to refuse bets they're certain they'll lose?
The last thing this country needs, my self-righteousness declared, is an increasing group of motorists cruising around our roads at 23 mph.
Take for example my grandmother - a wonderful, bright, funny woman in her 80s with a laugh as infectious as Ebola. Much as I love her, I have to confess that I'd run a mile in the opposite direction if I ever saw her behind the wheel of a car. I'd feel safer if my eight-year-old nephew, wired on sugar and Playstation games, offered to drive me to the wilds of north Donegal in a stolen Ferrari Testarossa.
My ageism aside, there's the legal aspect. In these days of ever more stringent testing for young drivers, the fact remains that driver testing was only introduced in Ireland in 1964. Therefore, anyone driving for over 40 years - around 20 per cent of all drivers, according to the insurance firms - has never been legally verified as safe to be in control of a motorised vehicle. All you had to do prior to 1964 was fill in a form and cough up a fee. Lord only knows what deranged loons were given them. And are now driving around our streets.
But then I saw the photos of the gentleman in question - he no more looked a hazard to the public than I do. He has had a clean licence for years, obviously isn't prone to doddery gitness and is probably a far better driver than I. And, statistically, he's in the majority for people of his age. Fair play to him, he's something of a hero.
So hold on a minute, said my empathetic heart to my bigoted head, cool your boots. Sure, there's bad elderly drivers out there. We've all seen aul' ones in Morris Minors driving the wrong way around roundabouts. But it's nothing compared to what younger motorists of so-called sound mind get up to.
In fact, I reasoned, this would be a much more pleasant and infinitely safer place if everyone ambled along at jogging pace in their cars, stopping every 100 yards to admire a nicely sculpted hedge and moan about the price of teabags. I'm hopeful that I'll be doing much the same in 30 years. That's if some spotty teenager in a souped-up Honda Civic doesn't get me first.
Truth be told, I'm quite looking forward to old age. So much, in fact, that I plan to fake senility as soon as I'm old enough for people to believe it could be true. I can't wait to blurt out to people I've been barely tolerating my whole life exactly what I think of them, smothering their outrage under the cloak of my (apparently) diminished faculties. As for using my
I fully intend to spend my golden years cruising around the west coast of Ireland in a Citroën DS Safari, surfboards strapped to the roof, hunting for waves with the music of John Coltrane and a bevy of Basset Hounds for company. And if some jumped-up insurance clerk tries to stop me, he'll have a lot more than the Equality Authority to worry about.