'I've seen cars colliding' on Portlaoise roundabouts - retired taxi driver speaks up

A frustrated Portlaoise retired taxi driver is calling time on dangerous driver behaviour on roundabouts, and demanding that Laois County Council respond to his requests to make them safer.

Experienced professional driver Derek Ryan drove a taxi for a dozen years in Portlaoise, crash free, and says he hasn't had a driving collision since 1979.

Now driving his grandkids to school, he has seen many hairy incidents of drivers blatently ignoring rules of the road.

Derek told the Leinster Express / Laois Live that he fears someone will be killed.

He has made multiple calls to Laois County Council asking for the roundabout on the Block road at Midlands Regional Hospital Portlaoise, to be repainted, because he believes drivers simply do not see it.

"I've been onto the council at least six times since last September. Cars are turning left, right and centre as if there is no roundabout. The council said that the planners would ring me back but nobody has.

"I'd nearly tempted to go myself to repaint it with ordinary paint, just to make the point. It was painted a year ago but it's faded.

"I have seen cars collide on that roundabout. I'm waiting on someone to be killed. It is a dangerous roundabout," he said.

Derek is also suggesting a new idea, to install the same embedded lights on the roundabout as the council have done on some courtesy pedestrian crossings in Portlaoise.

It is not the only roundabout that Derek has seen collisions.

"I saw two incidents at Fielbrook. In one a car coming from Downeys drove into the side of a car leaving Fielbrook. I don't know who was at fault because the car that was hit exited straight over the roundabout, they didn't see the car coming from their left. If they had driven around as they are supposed to, they would have seen it.

The roundabout at the junction to Fielbrook housing estate on the Dublin road in Portlaoise in 2023. Image: Google Maps

"I saw an accident at the church roundabout, two women driving collided. Both of them were cutting across the roundabout, both at fault, luckily no-one was injured. People are ignoring the rules, there's no doubt about it.

"Recently I was pulling off to go around the Block road roundabout towards the schools, a woman driver was coming from the Dublin side, she thought I was going straight because I was driving around the roundabout not through it. Only for me braking, we would have collided. We were that close if we opened the windows we'd have touched hands. I had my indicator on. My wife was in the car, we had two kids in the back. I am waiting on someone to be killed. I'm not going to be the one at fault, I will not drive over any roundabout," he said.

He has even consulted the Gardaí.

"They told me that only lorries and buses are allowed to drive over the painted roundabouts. Others must go around them," he said.

He cites another recent alarming example of bad driving. 

"I was dropping my daughter to Tesco, I had the right of way at the church so I was driving on. A car ahead was parked on the roundabout waiting for traffic to ease to go up the Dublin road. A woman behind him went out the wrong side of the roundabout to try and go up the Stradbally road. I had to hit the brakes, I opened the window to tell her it was a roundabout and she was in the wrong and to stop. Then she tried to drive around me. If we both had kept going I'd have run into her," he said.

Read next: Work delayed on new roundabouts for Dublin road in Portlaoise

Derek Ryan wants Laois County Council to do a public education campaign on how to drive through roundabouts.

"Definitely 100% a campaign would help to tell people how to drive. It's people that can't be bothered. They see a lorry drive over the roundabout and think 'why can't I?'. It's common sense. I'm quite annoyed. 

"I heard a radio ad by the council reminding people not to drive over the roundabouts. This is what amazes me, they can afford an ad on the radio but can't afford to remark the roundabout," he said.

Laois County Council has been asked for a comment.