Conor McGregor Road Safety is no joke!

As a Conor Mc Gregor fan I am disappointed in him for his latest disregard for road safety, he clearly is learning nothing from past convictions. Criticisms are inevitable that we are all only complaining about him because he is a well known personality and why not say the same about the many others who do such things daily. Well the difference is what Mc Gregor does, like it or not gets coverage and is copied by his legions of fans. 

In this latest incident it is not only disregard being shown to road users and indeed to his own safety, but it is a flagrant show of contempt to the garadai and all of us involved in road safety campaigning too, as well as those who are recovering from been in collisions on the roads, those bereaved through road deaths and the emergency services and so many others who are left to deal with these tragedies.    

The onus is now obviously on the gardai to act on this. 

Conor clearly had no qualms about publishing himself breaking the law, endangering himself and others in the process. 

I wish people would get it together on road safety, it is not a sexy subject and wins no accolades, believe me, but it is vital that we continue to call out such behaviour. 

I do not wish to over personalise this but Mc Gregor is a devoted father and a great sportsman indeed business man who has shown in recent times his willingness to put his money up to help the country, with his help towards personal protection equipment at early point of Covid_19 hitting these shores. But he needs to cop on and up his game here. I would love to see him get involved in campaigning for road safety, slaps on the wrists are the norm in this country for dangerous and or negligent conduct on the roads, no matter how serious the consequences...so it might be good to see those who offend having to meet people like myself or those who work in the field directly to hear the reality of  any disregard for ones safety and safety of others while on the roads, especially driving where obviously the odds of killing or injuring someone are much higher.     

As for the offence itself here, the using of a mobile phone while driving certainly is a growing concern.

In general there are ways of proving when a text or a call was in process more or less currently, in the aftermath of a crash, I think we need to be mindful of the fact that scrolling is extremely prevalent and just as distracting indeed I feel it is even more distracting, looking down Facebook, Instagram or Twitter, scrolling away , this is crazy behaviour. 

Nobody is immune from crashes and no expensive car or designer watch or any amount of Instagram followers will prevent a crash. 

The message is not only to Conor Mc Gregor and his fans but to all of us, we have to stop been complacent in our driving, cycling, walking whatever, we must not let our love of social media and connecting with people, cloud our common sense on the roads. The consequences can be a lot more than a telling off from the Gardai or someone like me complaining, the consequences can be fatal.     

I feel privileged to be involved in Leading Lights RSA initiative which thankfully shows that many around the country, especially young people, are trying to make a creative and real difference in protecting us all on the roads, I wish the likes of Conor Mc Gregor had even a little of their gumption. 

After The Crash

Since my sister  Donna was the “girl on the bike” in Dublin who was killed in a moment’s collision with a lorry on her way to work, each cyclist’s death registers somewhere in my heart. It’s a strange one, aside from a couple of families who lost loved ones in cycling tragedies that I know a little; I don’t know these people at all, yet there’s a kinship there. 

I read on Twitter this morning that ten year old Adam Lyons died - barely had I digested that sad news but I learned about another cyclist killed in the same twenty four hours along with a driver. Three lives lost on our roads, so many more lives scattered asunder in an instant that can never be undone.

The moment that you are told is the moment that your life changes, it is so seismic that it defies words. A road death transports us to an unknown land of a grief like no other in my experience. Not that there is a hierarchy in grief obviously, but it is different. It brings challenges few can imagine quite aside from the horrendous shock and devastating loss itself.

Was it her fault? Was she not wearing a helmet? Bikes are far too dangerous. You take your life in your hands cycling. Why didn’t she drive her car or get the train? Far too many bikes on the roads now. These comments, made to me by those I knew in the couple of days after the crash, were nothing like the rants and assumptions that were been tweeted even before I knew Donna had been knocked down and had died. The trolls are the trolls but they also are road users like us all so these damning groundless attitudes do worry me.

Then you have the Gardaí the emergency services and in some cases the gasps of hope soon dashed in hospital corridors or the back of ambulances. “Donna is in the city’s morgue.” Aaron and John the two Gardaí who broke the news to me explained, so we didn’t have any hope to be dashed. In Donna’s case you also had the media, who hand on heart nearly four years on have always been supportive. Perhaps not everyone’s experience though. Nothing prepares you to see your sisters photo on the newspaper stands under those tragic headlines, or on the way to buy clothes for her funeral to hear her death discussed on national radio shows. Now it is not something I blink an eye about as I have used it as a platform since to campaign for greater safety measures for cycling and to involve myself in road safety promotion in whatever way I can. But back in that September week, it was all a haze, all a new world. It was surreal.

These type of deaths effect everyone, it touches people who you have never met or known, most are wonderful when they get in touch but some are crazies. Being easily accessible online as I was I had some interesting encounters let’s just say. In a way those things are a distraction from the real life horror though and I look back and smile at the nonsense now. 

Donna was coming up to her 31st birthday, very young in my eyes still, our mother Catherine had died at 51 five years earlier which was young in my book too. There was so much potential, that torturous mourning for what might have been. No matter how much we know it’s pointless; it is near impossible not to languish in such thinking, in those early days in particular. 

I think of those families this week. I wonder how they are in the maze that they’ve been thrown into. I think of those who witnessed the crashes too, the first responders. Each death on the road touches deep into the fabric of so many peoples psyche. I’m blessed to know well in these last years, Amanda the woman who tried to save Donna’s life, relentlessly doing CPR having jumped out of her car. In our mutual sharing and unusual but tight bond, I have found that not only those whose loved ones are lost have their lives altered but others too. People like Amanda who only met Donna in those last moments of her life, seconds maybe. A man on his motorbike Paul will forever remember shouting and screaming in hope of getting the lorry driver’s attention. Just two of those impacted.

Each fatal crash has differences so I only can speak of my own experience. There were two people involved in the crash that took my sisters life, Donna and Henry (not his real name but more human than saying the “driver”). There were two immediate families left shaken to the core. Two families who in this case didn’t know one another, had no connection other than those few seconds if even that, which reshaped a part of us. I didn’t meet them until in a coroners court eighteen months later. Each collision is different, but all involve people, real people, someone’s sister someone’s son. I genuinely feel for Henry even though it’s a very different process he has been through, but probably outside of those closest to Donna, he is the only other person who understands the gravity of that Tuesday morning in 2016. 

For me I found direction and healing these last years in campaigning and working with RSA and others in highlighting the seriousness we must give road safety. I went from been a guarded person to wearing my heart on my sleeve and sharing my personal journey, it’s not for everyone, but each of us find our way. Working for safer roads, new legislation and radical increases in funds for cycling infrastructure saved me from the abyss. I messed up many times in my personal life as trauma and grief complicate everything if you don’t get the supports you need or reach out for the wrong ones. But I am proud too, proud to try to do good in memory of my sister and all those who are far more than a news story. Proud of the incredible people I know now who have helped me find a new way in the world. But of course never as proud of anything as to say that girl on the bike was my sister.