Comment an insult to Gertie’s legacy

WE LIKE to think that the Ireland of 1983 is a different country to the one we live in today.

This was a time, after all, when normally right thinking people thought nothing of sinking a few pints before driving home in their car. Pub car parks were a lot busier back then than they are these days. 

Drink driving wasn’t just confined to rural communities either. In Dublin, it was simply the done thing. The more cautious punters limited themselves to two pints, just to be on the safe side.

This was also the year when Gertie Shields lost her daughter, Paula (19), when a drunk driver struck the vehicle she was travelling in. The tragedy also claimed the lives of five of her friends.

Following Paula’s death, Gertie tirelessly campaigned for legislative and social change in relation to drink driving, setting up the influential Mothers Against Drink Driving (MADD) organisation.

When Gertie passed away in July of this year, she was praised by the Road Safety Authority for her tenacious campaigning on the issue of drink driving. Two years previously, the RSA had presented Gertie with the Supreme Award at the 2013 Leading Lights in Road Safety Awards in recognition of her enormous contribution to road safety in Ireland. 

Speaking after her death, Liz O’Donnell of the RSA said: “Gertie spoke out about drink driving when it wasn’t popular to do so. Much of the legislation in place today to prevent drink driving, and the sea change in public attitudes to this abhorrent behaviour, was made possible in part due to Gertie’s tireless work to ensure no other families endured the devastation caused by the loss of her daughter Paula.” 

It was hard not to think of Gertie last week when a heartbroken mother gave a harrowing victim impact statement in court after her four-year-old son was killed by a drunk driver. She also suffered horrific leg injuries in the accident.

This woman’s statement should be compulsory reading for all young people, detailing as it does the huge human cost of drink driving; perhaps it should even form part of the school curriculum. Her words need to be imprinted on the brains of all drivers.

With conviction rates for drink driving disturbingly low, an overhaul of our road traffic legislation is well overdue. But like everything else in this irritating country of ours, lack of enforcement remains a major obstacle in tackling bad driver behaviour.

The last time I was stopped at a Garda checkpoint and asked to give a random breath sample was in December 2010. Even though I passed with flying colours, it was still an unnerving experience and I shudder to think of the consequences had I chanced a few glasses of wine with dinner that evening.

As it happens, though, I could have driven over the limit for the next five years without encountering another checkpoint. It’s nothing short of an insult to drunk drivers’ victims and the legacy of tireless road safety campaigners like Gertie Shields.