I just spent the last hour haring around town trying to get things sorted out for my holidays. Money, contact lenses and odour eaters all had to be arranged before I could take, in a carefree manner, to the friendly skies.  It irritated my immensely to have people dawdling haphazardly on the streets as I sped along on my focused mission.  I began to wonder at one point what the world would be like if everybody drove as the walked.  Probably a lot like Cairo actually.

It all came to a head when I was "driving" along grafton street as fast as my feet would carry me with a line of bin bags to my right, funneling me in a particular direction.  There was a rather large woman approaching me.  Another woman who was driving behind me decided to overtake and her sudden emergence caused the approaching big woman to swerve into me.  I was tempted to roll down my spectacles and shout "Hey!  What are you trying to do?  Get me killed?".  But I said nothing and she swerved along unpreturbed.

If you think about it, some people are complete road hogs.  They are magnetically attracted to the wall by the side of the pavement and will stick to it come hell or high water.  Or an opposing vehicle.  Such is their doggedness that they will often prefer to come to a complete halt that move out of the way to let somebody pass.  There they will stand revving their feet and flashing their eye-lights in an attempt to scare the opposition out of their way.  If in the rare event that they are diverted from their wall-clinging route, they will immediately veer back to regain its guidance.  I remember seeing one driver round a corner in the face of intense oncoming traffic.  Rather than stick to the lane that was closest to him, he drove in a huge arc across the opposing traffic to get to the wall and caused chaos in the streets.  He nearly caused a pile up and people just barely stopped short of making angry V signs at him.

Then of course there are the lunatics that walk with their eyes down.  I mean it makes about as much sense as driving in the dark with no headlights.  These people see nothing more of a fellow pedestrian than his shoes which makes evasive maneuvering tremendously difficult.  In fact, if it wasn't for responsible drivers like myself and Donocha O'Duilleann, there would be constant pile-ups of body wreckage on all the pedestrian streets of Dublin.  And where do these buskers and showpeople get off when the start performing right in the middle of the road?  It causes such an obstruction, especially when the crowd of rubber-neckers builds up around them, that I waste about 2 mars bars worth of fuel driving around them.

Today I witnessed a horrible accident.  I could see it coming.  There was a young pup of a joy rider driving with his arms all over the place and swerving wildly to show off to his friends.  And old couple came tottering towards him, minding their own business.  The young mad man smacked straight into the old guy's shoulder and caused him to spin through 180 degrees.  The wife was unhurt because she was wearing her belt.  The old guy fumed at the young fella who said nothing more than an insincere sorry and then went on his way.  I'd say the old guy was sorry he wasn't installed with antilock brakes or side impact bars or heat seeking missiles.  If you wont believe me you can go back to look at the skid marks left by the leather of respectable shoes and the plastic of Air Max runners.

So I think its about time we policed our streets with a view to imposing order on the chaos of walking.  There should be a dual carriageway system, with an overtaking lane and roundabouts. There should fly-overs and fly-unders to allow people to get off it they want to head into a shop.  Speeding tickets and a points based penalty system should be introduced and constant offenders should be put off the pavement and made drive in their cars.  There should be zebra crossings where pedestrians are forced to give way to motorised vehicles and double-parking, the most ignorant of offenses, should be outlawed and enforced with zero tolerance.  I think feet-clamping, or toe-ing the offender away should be a lot to eradicate the problem.  Come on, make your voice heard, and ensure that our streets are safe and pleasant to walk on.  And it could lead to a whole new line of "driving" related songs:

• "Keep the trotters running, get out on the highway"
• "Working at the foot-spa"
• "Get outta my dreams, get into my shoe"

I'm sure there are many, many more but right I must take my leave and drive off into the sunset, with no particular place to go.