HELL HATH NO FURY LIKE A LEARNER DRIVER

Dear Sir,

I am a learner driver and proud of it!

However, during this last few days I have been so filled with anger, upset and hurt that me and the hundreds of thousands of L drivers (that only 90,000 were affected was a blatant lie!) are being blamed for the accidents on our roads.

I have seen so much carnage on our roads and have witnessed first hand the devastation that it causes. For the powers that be to use me as a scapegoat is sickening, there is no other word for it.

Do the Road Safety Authority have any idea how frustrating it is to be a learner driver? To constantly try to drive in the correct manner, only to have everyone else on the road thwart your efforts?

I know all the rules, I know how to use a roundabout properly, how to overtake and the importance of awareness, but it seems at times that I am the only one. To display L plates on your car is to attract aggression and complete inconsideration from everyone else on the road.

I always try to keep to the speed limit, provided it is safe to do so, but my car has only an 899cc engine and doesn’t have the power sometimes to keep up speed going up hills, for example. But instead of trying to understand why I’m not overtaking the truck when there’s a continuous white line on the road, drivers try to intimidate me.

One time on the main road, I was slowing down to try to turn right, when a truck driver behind kept beeping his horn. I have never been so scared and frightened in my life, I thought I was going to be run off the road.

I applied for my driving test in May, as the waiting list in Cork city was only 6 weeks according to the RSA website, I decided to wait until I was sure I could pass. Fat lot of good that did me- it’s now over 6 weeks and I still haven’t even received a date for my test. Not only that but also choosing an instructor is a nightmare.

One of my friends went to four instructors, who he found useless, before he found one that managed to help him achieve that much cherished pink piece of paper. I thought the RSA website would help, but it actually made me feel worse.

Apparently if a driving instructor in Ireland is registered, it means absolutely nothing other than their intention to sit these planned exams for instructors.

I call on the Road Safety Authority and the Taoiseach, Mr. Brian Cowen (who I have nothing but the utmost respect for, even though I would never vote Fianna Fail), to remember what the word democracy means ‘of the people’-and remember that people are usually even happier when it is admitted that a mistake has been made and that they have been listened to than when a mistake was never made in the first place.

I am so proud to be an Irish woman- so do what you were elected to do Mr. Cowen and remind me of why I am proud.

Yours sincerely,
Melissa O’Neill,
Burncourt,
Cahir,
Co. Tipperary.

THE MINISTRY OF CHAOS

Dear Sir,

Whether it was the stupidity of past and present transport ministers in allowing any idiot on a provisional licence to drive unsupervised by a competent full licence holders or this present fiasco with the breathalysers, we must be the butt of music hall jokes worldwide.

Surely we could afford to buy a few hundred of the ones we need from some European country that is presently using the type that we need. Could not Mr. Dempsey swop a few dozen of the useless voting machines and become a national hero instead of the fool that he is.

When the NRA was dealing with the required Rathcormac – Fermoy bypass a general plan was published in The Avondhu and gave the public an idea of what was involved. The flood prevention scheme that Ned O’Keeffe has promised Fermoy is of equal importance and considering that he promised Rathcormac a new school 5 years ago and nothing other than a proliferation of expensive rented porto cabins, has happened, it is time that he showed he is no better now than he was 5 years ago.

Thank you,
Richard Prendergast,
Mondaniel,
Rathcormac.

REMEMBERING THE DAYS OF THE ‘HOPS’

Dear Editor,

I hope that this story will be of interest to the older reader in Fermoy and the environs.

In the summer of 1964, I attended my first real dance in a dancehall proper. I had been to two ‘hops’, one at the CYMS Hall, the other at the Fermoy Lawn Tennis Club Pavilion. The ‘hops’ were brilliant.

This writer was 18 years of age at the time. A really good showband played in the Palace Ballroom on the night of my first real dance. I observed for the longest time.

Anyway, I built up sufficient courage to ask the ‘Belle of the Ball’ to dance with me. The band played ‘Concrete and Clay,’ a number one for Unit 4+2 in England.

The ‘Belle of the Ball’ did the Charleston for me, swinging her right foot to the left and then swinging her left foot to the right. I thanked her for obliging me with those three Charleston dances.

Could she dance?

Yours sincerely,
Tom McAuliffe,
One Cool Cat,
13 Cluain Dara,
Fermoy.