Delivering danger to all pedestrians.. and drones on way too
AS somebody who lives in an Irish city and regularly walks around town, my mostly likely risk of danger right now is either by bikes or fast food delivery rider.
Seriously, folks, our footpaths, pavements and streets – the very skies above our heads – have descended into some sort of Mad Max-like fight for survival and with drone deliveries of fast food now starting as well, you’d need eyes on top of as well as in the back of your head.
It wouldn’t be a very dignified way to go, would it? “Did ya hear about Joe? Awful news, got brained by a family bucket of chicken legs, dropped from a drone flying over his back garden. Finger lickin’ dead, so he is”.
Companies like Deliveroo and Just Eat – and the fast food joints that employ them – seem to be absolutely fine with their riders careering along our footpaths on giant heavy e-bikes, slaloming in between pedestrians like it’s some sort of deranged Olympic sport.
What happens if I get hit by one of these? Who do I sue?
What’s the betting they’ll say that any injury caused by a lunatic on an e-bike is solely down to them, as a self-employed delivery rider. And not to sound like some sort of mad conspiracy theory lad, but aren’t all of those drones equipped with cameras?
Do you really want the lads from your local pizza joint flying eyes in the skies past your bedroom window every 30 minutes?
Next they’ll put speakers on them as well and all you’ll be hearing is: “ooooh! Do you want cheese with that pepperoni!?”
It’s a weird world we live in these days, when we have handed over so much power to big corporations who couldn’t give a flying feck about our safety, our privacy and the quality of our lives.
Look at England, where they privatised the water supplies to homes. Within a decade, they’ve ended up in an almighty mess, with corporations taking out huge profits, jacking up prices, loading companies with huge debt and pumping raw sewage into their rivers and seas.
There were strong moves towards privatising Irish Water and you can bet there are a lot of rich and powerful people in Ireland (and around the world) who would still love to privatise our public services in the way that has happened elsewhere (we did, of course, sell off some public utilities like the phones and telecommunications and that’s resulted in some of the highest charges to consumers in the European Union).
We should always beware of the companies and politicians who promise to give us “more choice” or make our lives easier.
A lot of us became too lazy to walk or drive to the chipper or the Chinese takeaway – so now you’re taking your life in your hands trying to walk along the footpath. Have you ever seen one of these guys being stopped by a guard?
There really should of law against it.