Road Wave: Cork Driving Etiquette

24th Jan 2011

It often takes a trip abroad to realise some of the great things about Cork. Well, obviously you know those things are great already but you just need to pop overseas or up to Dublin to see just how great.

Every now and then your benchmark of how good things are in Cork needs to be re-calibrated upwards. Sometimes when you go abroad and feel the absence of simple things the blistering fire of love within your soul for the Rebel County roars even louder.

Double-waving. The height of courtesy as shown by this feen whose old doll prefers the back seat.

Many of this city's streets and much of the county's billion-odd kilometre network of windy narrow roads requires smooth driving skills. Much of the tarmacaddam spaghetti that connects this magnificent county together was originally built for horse and carts.
 

With the exception of Limerick and Dublin, most European cities have discarded such primitive animal-driven forms of transport and Cork is naturally among them but many of our county's thoroughfares are still painfully narrow so parked cars, ditches, walls and bollards all pose as obstacles on some of Cork's skinny streets and rake-thin roadways.

Along with a deft touch of the steering wheel and a nimble clutch foot, Cork's drivers are required to exhibit excellent spatial awareness as they pass each other. An inch too far to the left and your modern car's flimsy body buckles like a USA-assorted biscuit tin cover in the hands of a toddler. Half a centimetre too far to the right and like a medieval battle, your wing mirror goes into a grating joust for survival with the oncoming vehicle's equal and opposite.

However, Corkonians' advanced evolutionary clock, has developed a system to reduce considerably the tension of this daily bone of contention by constantly saluting one another in gratitude for even the most trivial of acts of courtesy.

The salute can come in several forms. Some favour the single index finger raised from the steering wheel, others a full open-palm or thumbs up. Other acknowledgements of courtesy include a single blast of headlight, one loop of the indicators (handy for signaling to those behind you) or in very special circumstances a verbal 'nice wan' through an open window accompanied by a smile and hearty thumbs-up.

Travel to other countries, and indeed counties, and this level of sophistication has yet to arrive Indeed other counties do exhibit this characteristic but anthropologists have agreed that they salute each other due to the fact that the other driver may be a relative - such is the inbred nature of life outside the People's Republic.

A typical example of the courtesy of Cork drivers is pulling in as soon as possible to let other cars pass on a narrow street. Often, despite the law being on their side, Corkonians who find themselves in a head-to-head on a narrow street will reverse - even though the oncoming car is the one obliged to pull in behind parked cars on their side.

The two way part of Douglas street is a huaire for luh-ry drivers like Fitzy

Cork isn't totally void of road rage but much of it remains contained within the sound proof bubble of a car and its firmly closed windows. Furrowed brows, sarcastic finger wagging and mouthed charades of frustration are often exchanged via tightly sealed panes of glass. Maybe if a survey was to be carried out, lip readers visiting the city might find driving far less polite than the view of Cork we exhibit through these red tinted glasses!

As already mentioned much of this courtesy doesn't exist abroad. Other cities like Waterford and Limerick have adopted saluting but, as witnessed recently in the latter, the saluting finger may also be resting on the trigger of a loaded firearm.

Drivers in northern Europe, American and Australia barely acknowledge each other. In countries like Italy, Spain and France any gestures of courtesy, like waving a car approaching from a side street onto a bigger one, are usually greeted, at best, with puffed cigarette smoke in your general direction and a look of ungrateful derision.

Ooo iz ziss foreign idiot directing ze traffique?

Corkonians are a highly mannered and polite race. If it could be even described as a downside, the effect of this is that any incident of kindness on the roads demands verifiable gratitude.

It may even be the case that most incidents of road rage in the Rebel County are caused, not by drivers making mistakes or being bullish, but by drivers who are NOT given a salute of gratitude for a particular act of roadway kindness.

This can seem like a test. It's like Corkonians are checking their fellow Rebels' manners are up to scratch.

Often it feels like certain drivers go hugely out of their way to let you past on a narrow street or lane - reversing, pulling up on a kerb or directing you through a narrow gap - but only to check if you are mannerly.

As you cautiously approach the narrow gap between your cars you can see them surveying you. Their adrenal glands poised for release if you fail to raise a thank-you finger or at worst, don't even perform a 'head twitch'.

So woe unto he who fails to engage in this unwritten code of courtesy for He or She shall be struck down with a glare that could start World War Three.