I was on the road down the west last week and I got into a bit of a tizzy as I was running late to meet a farmer to record an interview. I hate being late or rushing around but, uncharacteristically, I misinterpreted his directions and ended up having to turn back and go another route, taking the Loughrea road out of Tuam.

Was I speeding to make up time? I don’t think so, although I wasn’t exactly Sunday driving either. But somewhere along that road on a straight stretch, I hit what I’ll call a short ripple of bumps and almost lost the car. I was airborne for a nanosecond and my heart missed a beat. There was a car whizzing past me in the opposite direction.

As I landed to a unnerving wobble before regaining control, I instinctively looked in my rearview mirror to see the car behind doing the same thing. I was only inches from bouncing across the road on impact. It was an awful fright. But I counted my blessings that I have a good car which I felt helped itself steady up on impact.

None of us are infallible and accidents happen. And this is how they happen – of course when you least expect them because if you expect them, well then they don’t tend to happen, do they?

There are probably people reading this who know that part of the road I am talking about. I was never on it before. But if I am again, by God I’ll remember. Stronger cars, more responsible driving, stricter laws and better roads have combined to reduce car accidents. But on some roads, it is obviously nothing to do with the car or the driver but with the surface itself. If anyone in Galway County Council is reading this, they might investigate because I was very lucky last week and so are many others who use this road, I am sure.

I always try to regularly picture a child running out from the side of the road when I am driving as a reminder to concentrate. But whether or not it was my fault or the fault of the road surface that temporarily took control of my car last week, that split-second wobble was a sobering reminder of the dangers of driving. Let’s all slow down.

Shut up and play the hits

The guitarist with some band called LCD Soundsystem called Taoiseach Leo Varadkar “a tosser” on that great bastion of measure and respect, Twitter, after they met backstage at a concert in Dublin last weekend. The taunt was used in a garbled commentary on Ireland’s abortion laws.

Whatever about a jumped-up musician from another country trying to make a name for himself with an attention-seeking derogatory tweet regarding the laws of a foreign country, for me the language used was just the latest reminder that we are in for a most unseemly and intolerant national “debate” in the run-up to next year’s promised abortion referendum.

I said the same thing here a few months ago following a most distasteful row on the subject on one of Vincent Browne’s last TV3 shows.

Worryingly, the lack of any boundaries of taste on Twitter means we must brace ourselves for deranged and unchecked propaganda from the more sinister fringes at both ends of the abortion spectrum. And our politicians will be shouted into corners and subjected to vile abuse as the debate cranks up. So whatever about some mouthy American guitarist and his lack of respect for our Taoiseach, it is mild compared to what will be said, written and tweeted by the noisier elements of the pro-choice and pro-life campaigns between now and referendum day. CL