I Fought the Law and...erm well nothing really happened

I drive up my favourite road in Co.Kildare every day - the one that is so small it doesn't have a name (like most of them in rural Ireland). I call it the Grand National road because of its many and varied humpback bridges and hairpin bends and other exciting Irish obstacles. Like the man who forgot his horse, pulling a cart himself. And the lost golfer. Wolfe Tone, father of Irish republicanism, is buried along the early part of this road too. If you ever find yourself in St Stephen's Green in Dublin ever, look out for the beautiful Edward Delaney sculpture on the Merrion Row corner.



It's a great fun road to drive for a former rally driver's daughter and I enjoy the challenges it presents me.

A new challenge presented itself today. A shiny red car started flying up behind me on a straight stretch of the road. This often happens I find. Usually salesmen in their cars getting a bit of an ego boost by intimidating the girl in the little 13 year old rally car. Anyway, I sighed and waited for the inevitable close overtake (this road barely accomodates two average car widths) that I encounter almost every day.

Instead, its radiator started flashing red and blue. Ooops. But I looked at my speedo and was doing 55/mph which isn't too bad on an 80/kmph road.

This was the exchange:

Garda: You're going too hard!

Me: Err, sorry.

Garda: Good.

Me: OK, bye then.

And that was it. All of which called to mind the comedian Dara O'Briain's incredibly accurate description of the levels of Irish justice.

This goes (with thanks to Mr O'Briain): "There are three states of legality in Irish law. There is all this stuff which comes under 'that's grand', then it moves into 'ah now dont push it', and finally it comes under 'right now you're takin the piss', and that's when the police come in."

And thank god for Ireland that the Garda didn't feel the need to get out of his car for this. He might have noticed I haven't renewed my car tax yet. Which probably pushes my motor crimes into the piss-taking category.