Driving without a licence

really does not seem to worry some people. This morning's headline news in the paper is that some thirty-nine thousand people have been caught driving without a licence in the last five years in this state - and that some of them have been caught more than once.

Now there are penalties for such things but it seems that they mean little. People continue to drive without a licence. They also drive unregistered and uninsured. They drink and drive. They use their mobile phones. They do other completely irresponsible things.

There was an accident on the main road near here a couple of weeks ago. Fortunately nobody was seriously hurt but an elderly woman was taken to hospital as a precaution after stumbling backwards. She was stumbling backwards to avoid a car that was turning on a red light when the pedestrian light was green. The driver was on his mobile phone. We saw all this. He sailed merrily on apparently unaware of the chaos he left behind him. I didn't get his number and I don't know whether anyone else did.  I hope they did. 

I didn't stop to help because there were several other people there, all more competent to offer assistance than me. I heard the ambulance arrive while I was in the library and was told later that she was "okay but very shaken up". I would be too. I hope she is "okay".

I have no idea what the answer is. There is far too much dependence on the "right" to drive. To my mind there is no such "right". It is a privilege that is all too often abused.

Next week I am going to spend an hour with the parents of a child. The child has been left seriously disabled by a driver who should not have been on the road at all. He was out on bail and he has just been caught again. 

I despair.