EMISSIONS:MANY OF you fine folk may be venturing to Europe over the next few weeks for some blessed relief from the misery of the Irish summer. For those intending to go the ferry-drive route, may I humbly proffer a few words of advice?, writes KILIAN DOYLE
According to statistics I’ve just invented, you are 11.64 times more likely to have a crash while on holidays than you are at home. This is due to you being so relaxed you let your guard down. Or because you’ll be so distracted by your screaming offspring in the back that it’s practically inevitable you’ll plough into a barn, either by choice or chance.
So here are a few tips to keep you safe. I’m quietly confident that this article, unlike my usual meandering missives, may actually be educational. By the end of it, hopefully you won’t feel as if you’ve wasted five minutes of your life that you’ll never get back.
Firstly, while we Irish are in no position to be casting the first stones, you should be aware that the driving styles of many of our fellow Europeans will not fill you with confidence that you’ll get home alive.
For instance, Spaniards drive like they’re being chased by bulls, and Italians as if they’re escaping angry husbands who’ve walked in on them with their wives. The Portuguese tear about with a casual recklessness that is terrifying and the Greeks are worse still.
Britain, on the other hand, is always near the top of the pile when it comes to road safety. That’s not, I suspect, because the denizens of that fair land are necessarily safer drivers than their Latin cousins, but rather because the average UK road has more cameras on it than at Princess Di’s funeral.
In France, anyone caught travelling 25km/h above the speed limit risks having their licence confiscated on the spot. Gendarmesalso think nothing of impounding your car, melting it down and turning it into batons with which to beat rioting kids in Parisian suburbs. Could you have that on your conscience?
Make sure you prominently display at least one IRL sticker. Not only is it the law, but it will prevent Anglophobic locals spotting your right-hand drive motor, thinking you are English and running you off the road into a ravine.
In many European countries, you are legally obliged to carry visibility vests in the car for all occupants. Presumably that’s to make it easier for the emergency services to locate you in the above-mentioned ravine if you manage to survive the drop and fight off the slavering vultures eyeing your battered flesh.
In many jurisdictions, the law says you must also carry a reflective orange breakdown triangle. Why, I don’t know. Are you supposed to use it to bat away the articulated truck that’s bearing down on you as you’re stopped in the hard shoulder of a motorway?
In Spain, you must also carry spare bulbs for your car and an extra pair of glasses, if you wear them. Although, considering the way many Spaniards drive, you may be better off not seeing anything at all. Out of sight, out of mind, eh?
The derestricted sections of German autobahns are a blast. Not only are they full of crazed captains of industry blasting down the outside lane at 240km/h, they’re also riddled with half-conscious amphetamine-addled Hungarian lorry drivers three- quarters of the way through a non-stop jaunt from Istanbul to Copenhagen. The potential for unadulterated chaos would keep you on your toes, if nothing else.
Finally, don’t be tempted to break any laws while abroad in your vehicle. You may be on your holidays, but the cops aren’t. And they have guns. Don’t give them an excuse to whip them out.
Remember those few pointers and you’ll probably get home in one piece. But don’t come running to me if you don’t.