Police concerned about ‘that guy’
Last week in our area our staff went to three fatal car accidents, three days in a row. Two involved head-on collisions with heavy vehicles and a third was a single vehicle crash.
This has prompted me to talk about ‘that guy’. I don’t know that guy’s name or where he lives but he might be familiar to you.
Last summer I saw ‘that guy’ when I was towing a trailer back from the Coromandel.
I was driving on SH27, lining up my next coffee stop in Tirau.
I was in a long line of traffic, including a ute towing a horse float and other vehicles. As a collective we were averaging somewhere between 80-90km/h. It was just one of those days.
SH27 is narrow in places, the road undulates and there was plenty of traffic. All of a sudden I was aware of a vehicle next to me — ‘that guy’ was driving — he was flying and managed to pass about six vehicles without visibility before the next curve in the road.
Though off duty, I started braking and going through a checklist for the inevitable crash scene I was about to encounter; park safely, phone 111, I was starting to think how I would describe my location so I can direct emergency services, thinking about what’s in the first aid kit and so forth.
Miraculously the collision never came. Not because of any other drivers in our lane, but simply because in those few seconds there simply wasn’t an oncoming car, truck or bus in the other lane.
The only reason ‘that guy’ was not obliterated before our eyes was there was only thin air occupying the space across the centre line.
Shortly after this, and certainly no more than 10 minutes of driving later, the road leads you past a small settlement with the inevitable dairy.
One guess who pulled in and got out of his vehicle as I passed. Correct it was ‘that guy’. Same guy, same car, same wife in the front seat and same child in the rear seat. That’s a lot of risk to be first at the dairy counter!
As I drove on, I started thinking about risk-benefit ratios and ‘that guy’. Is he a hunter, boatie or responsible for staff safety at work. Maybe he’s reckless in these pursuits as well and maybe he’s not.
Ironically there are those who, in every area of their lives, mitigate risk well and look after their mates. However, behind the wheel they become ‘that guy’.
I saw ‘that guy’ in town this morning, he was in a black ute, driving away from the town centre, a face full of phone and absolutely no attention to the road in front of him.
The reason our staff try and locate
that guy every day is because every time someone speeds, fails to give way, texts on their phone and doesn’t wear their safety belt, they are simply a near miss. So often we get away with it, like ‘that guy’ who gambled his life and that of his family on finding thin air around that blind corner SH27.
My message to you today is simply ‘be safe and don’t be that guy’.