MOTORING: ON THE ROAD AGAIN – with BRIAN McDAID

Ok – it’s a motoring column. But how Brian McDaid gets new-born babies and bicycles into it this week is beyond us! Enjoy – and stay safe behind the wheel!

Leap of joy

We were humbled this week to learn that Daniel Kelly and his wife Lisa turned down offers from RSVP, Ok Weekly, People En Espranol, Ireland’s Own and also said goodbye to “Hello” in favour of our wee motoring column On the road again to share their great news of the birth of their baby daughter Ailish.

Proud father Daniel Kelly from the Finn Valley, a rally driver who also prepared and built his own beautiful 1992 Corsa, which was recently captured in mid air as it leaped over the old railway bridge on the back road from Letterkenny to Convoy on the Mini Stages Rally.

Daniel might have been happy with his Corsa in his local rally but was overjoyed at the arrival of his baby daughter on leap year.

It looks like Ailish is following her fathers footsteps into rallying as she arrived on her life stage with the tightest margins of time.

Her Halda trip-master time clock started at 00.03 just three minutes into leap year’s day the 29th of February.

Congratulations to Lisa, Daniel and baby Ailish. It looks like the little Corsa could be confined to the workshop in the near future.

Cycling Courtesy

The are nine million bicycles in Beijing, “and that’s a fact”, that’s according to the singer, Katie Melua, God knows they are probably a lot more cycling around Beijing now, ten years after her hit song made it to No 2.

Miss Melau didnt make it as far as our beautiful county to sing about our bicycles, our bicycle lanes and our variation on the rules of the road.

If all the population of Donegal was spread evenly over all of our county , 28 of us would have to share a square Kilometre, In Beijing 4,900 have to share the same measurement of space on their bicycles!

So why, with so much space do we have so many issues on our roads.

I have a bike and drive, so what I am trying to look at is this problem from two different viewpoints.

If we look at driving in Dublin, rather than Donegal , it is not for the faint hearted, every inch of space is used ,and then some, especially at rush hour as commuters make their way, to and from work.

Cyclists and car drivers and busses battle for their patch of tarmac in the full knowledge of their entitlements on the road.

Driving in Donegal is different, even roundabouts, especially in Letterkenny. each one has a different local instruction for lane position. I do except it’s an effort to manage the free flow of traffic at peak times. Then look at the one way streets with two lanes marked out which are not understood or appreciated, so what hope is there for someone on a bicycle

A view from cyclist in Donegal is a daunting prospective, cycling lanes start on the road than end up on the foot-walk and they also end with no warning. When cycling on the roads around Donegal the drivers expect cyclists to cycle on the hard shoulder, from a cyclist point of view the hard shoulder is the last place they want to be, because of the debris etc. not to mention the uneven surface. They are more likely to suffer punctures or even worse, loss control of their bike and end up in the path of other road users.

It only takes the one irate driver or equally one irate cyclist to spark tension on the road. Drivers will feel that they are hard done by because an accident will always focus on the person in charge of the motorise vehicle, i.e. car or other,

A couple of things you might not know about cycling in Ireland……..

Cyclists aren’t obliged to use cycle lanes

In October 2012 the transport minister Leo Varadkar published information which abolished the requirement for cyclists to use designated lanes.

If you’re on a bike you should give hand signals to traffic behind you and ahead of you
(But remember: signals do not give you right of way, they just indicate what you intend to do)

Cyclists cannot break red lights. Nope, not even if you’re in a terrible hurry and there’s nothing coming. Not even then.

Fuel Watch

Vote Blaney No 1!

With the general election just over in Ireland this week it was nice to have the unique opportunity to give Blaneys a No 1 for their fuel prices in the Milford area. Their diesel is selling at a competitive €102.8 and their petrol is selling at €1:18 .8

Change for the worst 100 years on

I am just mad about trains, when my oldest boy was young the two of us headed to Dublin one morning on the express and went straight to Connolly Station and got the train back to Sligo and then made the rest of the journey home on the Galway to Derry Express. It’s as near as Donegal folk can get to travelling by train for part of our journey!

I was recently looking at the deal that Bus Eireann were offering on line for their national bus service and while browsing I was so shocked to see how little of Donegal was cover by our service provider. The map provided by Bus Eireann just drops of the scale when you look at the lack of service routes to the west and north of Co. Donegal.

For some one planning to come to Donegal by public service transport, the message from Bus Eireann map is don’t bother. I know there is plenty of local bus companies in Donegal that provide great service but what good is that if someone is planning to travel from Dublin sees nothing but a blank map.

What even annoyed me more was looking at a map from 100 years ago of the transport service in Donegal when the whole county had railways running through it from the very north in Carndonagh to the very west Burtonport to Killybegs and the very south to Ballyshannon and Bundoran,

And the map had more plans as the maps suggests to take the railway to Kilcar ,Carrick, Ardara, , Bunbeg  Carrigart, Milford and Ramelton . Its backward Donegal is going not forwards as far as the rest of Ireland is concerned.

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