Royal Blue Toyota Corollas Banned in Dublin
Back when the Lucan Road west of Chapelizod wasn’t a one-way off ramp from the N4, it was the main feature of my typical cycling day in Dublin.
Coming from town you always knew you had the hill at the end of your journey home, and usually with the prevailing wind in your face also - because it had a wicked tendency to prevail.
But the mornings were fast. While cycling home from town (Dublin city centre) could take half an hour, last time I timed the journey into my work on Stoneybatter I typically did it in 15 minutes. My record (hey I was a young male) was 11 minutes.
And going down that hill, at the midpoint - the level part - is where I was knocked down for the first ever time. It was by a Royal Blue Toyota Corolla.
Luckily I wasn’t going as fast as I may have been so I only went 25 feet through the air. The driver admitted it was her fault, said sorry, and invited me into her place for toast. I said no, but she then invited me in for tea so I said yes.
One of the great things about being in shock is not having to make much effort to butter your toast. I watched my knocker-downer’s eyes as she watched me hold the buttered knife above my toast. Now I know that I was simply holding it absolutely still, but thanks to having the shakes from shock I buttered my toast without a single voluntary movement of a muscle.
-Would you like me to butter yours? I asked her, it’s no trouble.
Bruised, cut, and in shock, I then made moves to have all Royal Blue Toyota Corollas banned from Dublin’s roads because they were clearly dangerous vehicles and I was doing Toyota a favour as the legal implications associated with being knocked down by one of its vehicles were obviously something to be avoided.
Alas I was too slow for myself in my sensible ban on Royal Blue Toyota Corollas in Dublin, because before it was put in place, just 15 days later, in Glasnevin - which is also in Dublin - I was knocked down by another Royal Blue Toyota Corolla.
And again it was the admitted fault of the driver, which is code for it being the fault of the car.
And that’s why in Dublin today you don’t see Royal Blue Toyota Corollas. You will see them in other counties of course, and many of them in specially constructed Royal Blue Toyota Corolla park and ride centres just outside Dublin, mostly in Kildare and Meath (Wicklow and Louth were eventually to follow suit and put in place similar bans).
I must admit though, I always wondered if I shouldn’t have tried to ban as many as 11 colours of Toyota Corollas, because they were clearly a dangerous car beyond the Royal Blue models that habitually knocked me down.
As far as I know the drivers of those two cars kept driving Toyota cars.
See More On This Story:
• Irish Times
• EnviroLink
• Fat Mammy Cat
• Swearing Lady
Eolaí gan Fhéile:
What a smart allegory, Eolai.
The ruling is an outrage and makes no sense whatsoever.
The ignorance and laziness this kind of governing betrays is shocking.
I can’t help wondering if existing pets that have done no social wrong wouldn’t be protected under Article 40 of the Constitution in the sense that they are property of a citizen and those property rights are protected.
Or maybe a pet having family status would be afforded protection under Article 41 so as not to break up the natural primary and fundamental unit group of Society, which after all does possess inalienable and imprescriptible rights, antecedent and superior to all positive law. What meaning does the term “family pet” confer, after all?
I’m confused here: Galway has had the same by-law for two years now and there haven’t been any complaints I know of.
Failure to enforce in Galway meant it wasn’t an issue? Galwegians accepted it as a just law? Galwegians simply accepted it as Dubliners, on the contrary, did not accept other by-laws lying down, such as bin charges? Is it just that Dublin is news?
(Sorry. I’m grumpy these days. I’m not saying I agree with the by-law - just confused - or misinformed).
Primal,
It is only because of complaints that I’m aware that Galway Co Co adopted the same by-law.
It certainly sounds unenforceable regardless of which county is adopting it, because after all existing laws would take care of the problem if they were applied and it is the same people that are expected to enforce the new laws.
I would think it’s news now because it’s now that Dublin is planning to introduce it. Do you know if the method of introduction proposed is the same for Dublin as however it was introduced in Galway?
I think in the last year or two there have been similar laws adopted or proposed in the North, in England and in Ontario, all of them making the news when proposed and all of them meeting the same complaints. So I can’t see it being a case of Dublin being news versus other Irish counties not being so.
Medbh on her site talks of some of the details that Malcolm Gladwell quoted when he debunked the basis of these laws. It’s well worth a read.
It strikes me that your point might carry real legal legs, Eolai on a Constitutional basis recognizing the primacy and autonomy of the Irish family. I hope someone runs with that.
Thanks for the link, Eolai. Gladwell’s builds his arguments really well. Even though they are banned in Ontario, I see pit-bulls all over the place. I don’t think there are many people who are authorized to enforce it or who are even interested in seizing dogs. It’s still a bad precedence to set because of its limited scope.
It made me worry a bit about my own dog even though he’s an ancient mutt.
You should post a picture of your dog in a gesture of inter-species solidarity.
Medbh,
Done. Here then is the debut of The Dog