Distracted drivers are the greatest menace on roads
I’ve never been in a proper car crash. I did roll an Austin Seven once, but that was just showing off, and besides, Austins have been known to roll while stationary, so it was hardly an achievement.
I’m aware it’s not skill that’s kept me safe but figure it’s better to be lucky than in possession of talent.
This week I found myself at an intersection as an ambulance – lights and sirens blaring – pulled through the traffic.
Crash.
Someone stopped for the ambulance and the car behind ploughed straight into them – not a sign of braking.
If the woman who ran into the back of the other car wasn’t stuffing about on her phone then I’ll eat my hat.
By the time I got to her vehicle, she was fishing about in the side well and shaking from shock.
Luckily the ambulance stopped and of all the people to be on the scene when you smash into a car, the ambulance would have to be your number one choice.
Funny story: an old boy I know – let’s call him Malcy – once crashed his Indian motorcycle into an ambulance. Right into the side of the bloody thing, whereupon the bike caught fire.
Luckily the ambulance officer had an extinguisher and the fire was put out before my buddy headed off on a buckled front wheel before the cops showed up and checked his reg and wof.
The point of this story is that in the olden days, everything was much slower and the ambulance didn’t even get a scratch. But old vehicles were also stronger which means the participant took the impact while the vehicle remained rigid.
But watching a modern car plough into the back of another vehicle at 50kmh was a thing of wonder. Poof, the airbags went off. The front crumpled perfectly. The engine dropped. The woman stepped out of the car with little more than airbag dust and a bump of adrenaline to show for what – not so long ago – might have been a pretty serious crash.
We take it for granted just how safe cars have become. Were that woman driving an old HQ or some Pig Iron from the 1960s she’d have needed a lot more assistance from the ambulance officer.
This is a good thing. As an owner of a car more than 80 years old, I’m well aware that if I have a good smash I’ll be little more than a smear on the road and some pink mist, but that’s a choice I make when heading out in an old death trap.
We need the cars to be safe. Because they’ve got to save us from our terrible lack of attention. Our inability to get off our phones for a few minutes means a portion of all the cars on the road are operating without functioning operators.
Forget drink driving, speed, boy racers and foreign drivers in campervans without crappers – distracted drivers are the greatest menace on our roads.
Maybe the solution is to have computers drive the car but until that happens we need to do something to keep our attention on the road. Lord knows plenty of crashes don’t end as nicely as the one I witnessed nor as hilariously as Malcy and the ambulance.
Until the machines take over we need to remain cognisant of the fact that we’re piloting lethal devices and treat them with respect.
We need to get off our phones for a few minutes and pay attention to the road because people in old cars and motorcyclists will come off second-best when you Facebook junkies plough into them.