At this time of year, there’s a lot of focus on road safety. Slow down, check your tyre tread, never drink and drive - the messages are many and all merited.

The one that resonates most with me is driving when tired. Some people seem to never tire, even in the small hours.

I'm not one of those. I won't lie, I often struggle to keep it together on the road after a long day. I like to have coffee and sugary sweets to hand when driving at night. Sometimes, I'll pull in and walk around the car a few times to refresh myself. And I find loud music to sing along to works better than even the most interesting podcast.

There’s no doubt that our country roads are dangerous. Less than 1% of the 100,000km of roads that traverse this little country are motorways.

A further 5% are national roads, with about 13,000km of regional roads. That leaves 82,700km of rural roads, many of them little more than tarred goat-tracks. Are there steps we can take to make our roads safer?

Driving test fails to properly assess country road skills

In my opinion, the driving test is not fit for purpose. Perhaps that is an overstatement.

If the driving test is to prove an understanding of how to navigate feeder lanes, roundabouts and box junctions, it is fit for purpose.

However, it utterly fails to adequately address many of the core skills required to be a good driver on country roads, be they busy main roads or narrow back roads.

Cars, lorries, trucks, motorbikes, tractors and bicycles all share our country roads, all different sizes, heights and lengths.

The ability to overtake is an essential one - the knowledge when it is safe to do so an acquired skill. And if your vehicle isn’t going to overtake the vehicle in front of you, you should be aware of the need to keep back an appropriate distance to let other vehicles pass you and them in turn.

These are the crucial skills needed to navigate country roads safely, while also helping to minimise the risk to others.

A driver serenely sailing along at 45km/h on an 80km/h road, holding up a line of traffic as they are stuck behind a tractor they have no intention of passing, is one of the most annoying driving practices.

It’s also dangerous, as there is always the possibility that someone will eventually make a break for it and try to pass them and the vehicle in front of them.

Of course, such reckless driving is wrong, but the slow driver who is tailgating is a contributor to the situation.

There are few more frustrating places to be than four or five cars back in a convoy, particularly if you are on a part of the road that would afford the chance to pass one vehicle, but not two. Perhaps the only palce I dislike more is being on a tractor with a slow driver up your backside, uninterested in passing but preventing an ever lenghening procession of cars behind them from getting past me. I'll have one eye on the outside mirror, half-expecting a car to try their luck if we are on straight part of the road.

Another pet hate is drivers who frequently hold a lane position near the centre line, meaning it’s harder to see past them for an opportunity to overtake.

For me, the driving test needs to be adjusted to give more regard to country driving. In 2021, over three quarters of road deaths occurred on rural roads. Yet, 80% of the driving test is spent navigating the streets of a town or city. It doesn’t seem adequate.

No limits to the strange road speeds

Our speed limits often make little sense. The N80 road from Scarawalsh roundabout to Enniscorthy used to be 100km/h. It’s a relatively new road, having been built in 1990 to replace the Old Dublin Road.

In 2019, a motorway to bypass Enniscorthy was opened. A spur road links the motorway to Enniscorthy, coming to Scarawalsh. And the N80 speed limit was reduced from 100km/h to 80km/h.

The really ridiculous thing is that the speed limit on the much narrower stretch of the same road leading from the Moyne roundabout into the town itself had its speed limit increased from 60km/h to 80km/h.

I’m sure there is a reason for all this, but it makes little sense to me.

80km/h road at Derrynane Beg, Co Kerry.

Perhaps the most ridiculous speed sign I‘ve witnessed in this country was on a small road heading towards Derrynane beach in Co Kerry.

The road is wide enough for a single vehicle, no more. Ditch to ditch, it is no wider than the hard shoulder on either side of the road into Enniscorthy.

This road is off the N70, a few miles outside Caherdaniel on the way to Waterville. It is one of two roads leading down to Derrynane House, which is a busy tourist attraction.

It also leads to a popular beach. And the road is 80km/h. At least, it was when I was there last summer.

I was so shocked that I took a photograph as proof of what I was seeing. It’s a windy road, a couple of kilometres long, and my heart was in my mouth approaching every bend.

If anyone coming the other way was doing 80km/h, there was nowhere for me or them to go except into one another.

One way or another

The obvious solution in this instance is to make the two roads into Derrynane one way - one in and one out.

It would mean that local residents would have to take the long way round, either going in or coming out, depending on their location. The upside would be those two roads could be negotiated without trepidation.

I’ll go further. I think there are a lot of parts of the country where this could improve road safety.

Around where I live there are a warren of country roads, many in close proximity to each other. None of them are as narrow as the road to Derrynane - two vehicles can pass each other, although a pair of combines would struggle to squeeze by.

But if we were to have a network of one-way roads, it would open up the opportunity to create cycle and/or pedestrian lanes. And that would make a world of difference.

Between 1985 and 1989, there were 960,000 vehicles on average on Irish roads. By 2017, that figure had risen to 2.7 million

I have three sons, who are all now of age to drive. But all through their childhood, they were driven practically everywhere.

Going to school, to the GAA and soccer pitch for training and matches, to friends or relations, it just wasn’t safe for them to cycle.

And these were the same roads I cycled 40 years ago, in my teenage years. But the roads were much quieter back then.

Between 1985 and 1989, there were 960,000 vehicles on average on Irish roads. By 2017, that figure had risen to 2.7 million vehicles. That’s a three-fold increase. No wonder our roads are more dangerous.

Buy-in needed

It would be interesting to see how a community might react to having their local road network partly transformed into a one-way system. It would need to be done with the buy-in of locals and on a pilot scheme that could be reversed after a decent trial period if people didn’t want it.

I think that the trade-off of having a (slightly) longer journey but the opportunity to use the road to cycle might interest many.

Add the knowledge that a lorry, car or tractor won’t come hurtling around the corner at you and it becomes a tempting proposition.

Anything that makes rural roads less lethal and more user-friendly is surely worth considering.