This article is from page 4 of the 2006-04-04 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 4 JPG
BISHOP of Killaloe, Dr Willie Walsh, said this week that it was a moral offence to put lives at risk through dangerous driving.
Dr Walsh said there was a serious moral obligation on motorists to drive safely because good driving preserved the sacredness of life.
“There is a lot of discussion on the legal implications of dangerous driving and very often the issue is treated as a civil law matter, whereas it is also a serious moral issue,” he said.
Dr Walsh said that people should admit that driving under the influence of alcohol or dangerous driving was wrong, even if they didn’t get caught.
“People should say to themselves, ‘I have done wrong’ . . . there is a serious moral obligation to sit behind the wheel of a car and drive in a safe manner.”
Dr Walsh said that drink-driving was “endangering human life and therefore it is wrong”.
Dr Walsh said that the church had made a number of statements on the issue of road safety.
But these didn’t receive the same publicity as statements the church would make about sexuality, celibacy of sex abuse.
Dr Walsh added that he had signed up to the Safe Driving Pledge, organised by campaigner Jim Connolly, and it had made his driving safer.
The bishop recently spoke at the dinner of the Safe Driving Pledge conference, describing it as “a resounding success”.
“I am more conscious of not speeding. The vast majority of us would admit that we have broken the speed, but now I find with taking the pledge I am driving with more care”.
Mr Connolly said that there was consensus on a number of issues, including the immediate introduction of driver education into secondary schools, random testing for all drugs, including alcohol, higher Garda visibility, a radical change in driving test procedures and the elimination of test waiting lists.
The conference called for adequate ambulance and helicopter emergency medical services for pre-hospital and inter-hospital transfers.
It heard that government responsibility for road safety must be vested in one Minister.