During my time in An Garda Síochána, I came across all representations of humanity. Some good, some bad, and plenty in between.

The behaviour of some characters regularly left me dumbfounded, scratching my head trying to make sense of the mindset. I’ll give you an example.

Most of you will be familiar with the term ‘rubbernecking’. It means slowing down while driving to look at something taking place nearby like a traffic accident.

Some people possess a morbid curiosity and can’t help themselves when there is a chance they might see some blood and guts.

Apart from being a pain in the butt for those trying to manage traffic flow at the scene of an incident, they also run the risk of creating further carnage by not concentrating on their own driving. They often hinder the work of the emergency services too.

I came across an extreme example of it one time during my policing days, when dealing with a traffic accident in Cork. A guy driving out of the city ploughed into a wall and ended up with a serious injury. He was unconscious with his head resting on top of the steering wheel.

The emergency services reckoned it was too risky to try to remove the wheel, so they decided to cut it off at the column and take both steering wheel and driver to hospital.

One of the firemen got his cutting equipment and asked me to hold the driver’s head while he got to work. We were operating in cramped conditions as you can imagine and, as I was leaning........

© Evening Echo