The Old Girl was given a lift back to Auckland yesterday. Near Warkworth a truck three places ahead crashed into a car coming in the other direction. It was a serious crash and three people in serious condition were taken to hospital by air ambulance. The Old Girl saw a woman and two children in the car. The truck driver walked back along the road by the stopped traffic looking for the woman's arm. The right side of the car had been sliced away including the woman's arm. It was found, in pieces.
This is horrific but is fact. We hear about road accidents and the deaths are presented as statistics but the depth of misery and suffering often goes unreported. This woman, if she survives will undergo months of hospitalisation and a lifetime of pain and despair. I hope that the children will be OK.
Our roads are dangerous. Driving even at 50 kph must be taken seriously. Driving at 100 kph or more is life-threatening. I get very annoyed at car advertisements that instead of featuring safety like Volvo does, show car driving as adventurous and fun.
Fuck them.
I try to anticipate problems when driving, thinking ahead what the cars in front of me might do and whether some idiot coming from the other direction might veer into me. This morning when going to the gym, driving on the 100 kph section of a country road I saw way ahead a recycling truck chugging along towards me. There was a grey car in front of me. A red Holden, travelling at excessive speed overtook the recycling truck and travelled for some way on the wrong side of the road. I had anticipated this and had dropped back a bit. The car in front of me seemed oblivious to this and didn't brake or slow down. Maybe the driver thought as he or she was in the right, why should they. As it was the red Holden only just pulled back to the left before there was a collision. Stupid.
I feel that many drivers don't pay enough attention to what the outcome could be from a head-on crash. Maybe it takes empirical knowledge before they see the danger.
When I was about 9 a car, a Jaguar full of fun-loving revellers, at about midnight on a Saturday crashed through a barrier on Krull Street and sailed on down to McColl Street landing head on.
The driver was racing down with the play area on his right, didn't see or negotiate the right turn and went straight through and down.
The crash was tremendous and woke everyone nearby up. We lived two streets away and heard it. everyone came out to look before the kids were ushered back indoors. The driver and front-seat passenger were dead and the back seat passengers were in a terrible state.
In the 1980s when travelling from Auckland to Wellington with my sister and brother-in-law we came across an accident that had just happened near Taupo. A motorcyclist had been knocked off his bike and had rammed his head on the guttering. He was dead but my sister and brother-in-law, both doctors had stopped to see if they could help. It wasn't a pretty sight.
These events were horrible but in a way necessary as a reminder that driving is dangerous and shouldn't be treated lightly.
Be careful out there.
4 comments:
Totally agree. It's not a competition about who is right, or in the right. It's all about trying to keep everybody safe. I was crossing at the big four way intersection in Lower Hutt last week. It's one of those huge intersections (right next to a mall) where people are allowed (on cue) to cross in any direction. Some fucking idiot drove, at speed, through the pedestrians after the light was red. Running red lights is far too common these days, but this person deserved to be locked up, or never allowed to dride again.
We're on the same track here Richard (Robert's not, he's gone off-road but no matter, it's the norm).
Is it an age thing where we see running red-lights as silly and pointless.? Getting a few minutes ahead on the road (and often traffic blockages mean that the speedsters and red-light-runners end up in the same traffic queue further ahead). I put this down to empirical knowledge as well.
I agree that this wanker you saw needs to be derided.
Robert I agree with you (sit down and take deep breaths). Footpaths can be dangerous and, since some local councils have allowed those fucking e-scooters to be driven on them are becoming death traps. It's been bad enough with silly c**ts riding bikes on footpaths and drunk people, nutters, car thieves and heart attack victims going there as well. I'm looking forward to a Jetsons future where we can rise above this and freely jet about in the sky*
* But I've had a chardonnay and a rose by now.
Talking to The Old Girl tonight I realised that the guy going along the line of cars looking for an arm and finding bits and pieces of it wasn't the truck driver, it was her friend the driver of the car that she was in. The poor guy must be a bit traumatised.
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