Incredibly, it is not the first time 80-year-old Martin McGuane has had such an experience – this was the seventh time a motorist gatecrashed his home.
The situation has become so perilous that the retired farmer shuns using his front door and opts to use the back one instead. It seems there have been at least 20 accidents on the road outside his dwelling and he has asked the council to erect safety barriers, but to no avail.
Indeed, according to McGuane the local council insists he must build his own barriers, due to “liability issues” - an option he refuses to take as he “would then be liable if someone hit it and was hurt”. Road safety, Irish style.
So, let's see. We have an 80-year-old man afraid to sit in his living room for fear of being mown down by an errant driver because:
1) The council can't be bothered to put up safety barriers on an obviously dangerous section of road.
2) The elderly house occupant is afraid of being sued.
Only in...?
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4 comments:
GM, yep, only IN Oireland.....where else could you be sued for just minding your own business and getting on with your life? If sanity ruled and the council couldn't be bothered, you would be allowed (yes allowed, if not encouraged) to build a 15 foot thick wall to protect yourself from nutters. Better still, a 15 foot high ramp and if the nutters persist conforming to type, then they could bypass the house altogether and take their stupitity to a field beyond the house.
Yes D, you would have to feel sorry for the old guy.
The IT quoted a representative from the local authority saying the National Roads Agency should do something about it, but the NRA said it was the local authority's responsibility. Buck passing... again.
Oh FFS!... this is such a depressing tale of neglect, not only by local government and services, but by the National government as a whole.
Inaction will produce a reaction..
OMG what a pile of S*** or to reiterate Anon above OH FFS!!!. "Only in…." is right GM. What a shower. The poor man, and especially in his time of life, shouldn't have to be living like that, how ridiculous! Whatever about fears for his life (which is, of course, is the most important and obvious priority in this disgrace of a situation), I'm also wondering who's been cleaning up the devastation of a mess that's landed in an elderly man's front garden each of the 7 times (SEVEN! I mean HELLO!!??) and how many front doors has he had replaced and other repairs done each time?
Has there been any fatality re the drivers? Or is it the usual gombeen case of, only when someone gets killed that something's done about it? - let's just hope it won't be this poor elderly gentleman that's killed - will be too late for him then won't it??!!
P.S. love the "gatecrash" comment GM
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