Headlines
There is a time and a place...
There is a time and a place - but not in a car.
27th March 2007
Nineteen pairs of shoes.
Lined up in an otherwise bare space on the floor of the Performing Arts Centre (PAC).
Nineteen pairs of shoes which provided a stark, moving and powerful symbol of 19 youngsters who had once filled those shoes, young people now dead.
Nineteen pairs of shoes, of all styles, shapes and sizes - as were the young people who once wore them.
The deaths of those nineteen young people, between the ages of 17 and 24, in car accidents in the Forest of Dean in 2005 led a group of local driving instructors to do something more - much more - than the customary hand-wringing and expressions of sympathy, sincere though these may have been.
They determined to tell as many new drivers, and especially young drivers, of some of the dangers, often fatal or life-maiming dangers, of driving and, at the same time, to emphasise the vitally important and real message of safe driving.
Their presentation, "Time and Place", has been shared with over 5000 folk in schools and colleges, and road safety and associated groups in the two years since 2005 and, at the end of March, they presented "Time and Place" here in College for our students.
Up front the four principal causes of road deaths and serious incidents were highlighted:
- Drink-driving
- Speeding
- Using a mobile phone while driving
- Seat belts not used
To this list could also be added driving when tired, driving when under the influence of drugs, and drivers allowing their concentration to wander perhaps because of such things as distracting passengers or peer pressure from passengers wanting drivers to drive faster or take risks.
Often when presentations such as this quote statistics there is a temptation to let them wash over oneself or say "Yes, but ....". The stats in "Time and Place" came thick and fast. Not one could be ignored.
The additional stopping distance when travelling even at 35mph, just 5mph above the urban speed limit, was paced out for us. The PAC was not wide enough.
One unit of alcohol is equivalent to 1/2 pint of beer ('weak' beer at that) or a small glass of wine.
The body requires 1 hour to metabolise that 1 unit of alcohol. A night out with friends, ending at around midnight and with 5 or 6 pints of beer drunk, means that your blood stream will not be clear of that alcohol until 10 o'clock or 12 noon next morning. Think about it.
"If you drink, then drive, you're a bloody idiot" said the presentation, and the video clips of young people being taken from smashed up cars made clear that was the only appropriate adjective.
3500 people are killed on our roads every year. That's around 9 a day - or a jumbo jet full of people every month. All needlessly having lost their lives.
More young women, aged 17 to 19, are killed as car passengers than as car drivers.
It was explained that three impacts occur when a car is in a collision. When two cars travelling at 50 mph collide (and similar is true of other collisions such a car with another person, a car with a solid object such as a tree or fence etc) the first impact is of the two vehicles, their combined collision speed being equivalent to 100 mph; the second is of the driver (and passengers) with the windscreen or car body-work; and the third occurs in that split second when everything else stops but the organs of the body continue to travel, or attempt to travel, (at an equivalent of 100 mph). The damage to internal organs is colossal. Often after a road collision the driver may seem to have suffered little or no external injuries but the internal organs are so battered that the driver suffers permanent disability or is killed.
"Speeding is punishable by death" was one of the compellingly powerful captions. It is so often true - and may not be the driver's death, but maybe an innocent passenger or pedestrian or the innocent driver and occupants of another vehicle.
"Don't fool yourself, speed kills" was a key message.
Towards the end of "Time and Place" we heard a mother's poem about her 13-year old daughter, Cassie, who had been killed after being hit by a car. The driver was speeding. He had had a drink, but was not 'over the limit' - but Cassie died.
Her mother's words were read against a background showing the picturesque Church and churchyard where Cassie's funeral and burial took place, and then we were shown a close-up of the mother as she spoke of what the loss of a beautiful daughter meant.
Jan, one of those presenting "Time and Place" then revealed that she was Cassie's mother. More than anything else, it brought home that very real message that road incidents caused by drink-driving, speeding, the failure to wear seat-belts (always!), or by a failure to concentrate (because of mobile phones, distracting passengers, peer pressure) seldom affect the driver alone. Passengers, too, may be injured - or killed. Families suffer, friends are bereft, and even police, ambulance and fire and rescue officers are affected.
There is a time and place for socialising and drinking with friends. There is, indeed, a time for speed - on properly run and organised race-tracks in well-maintained vehicles. There is a time for calling up friends and catching up with phone messages. There are plenty of times when we don't want to be restricted. But the time and place for these is not in a car on our roads.
The introduction to "Time and Place" was full of quick-fire fun and humour, and it grabbed the attention. It was almost worth seeing the presentation for that zany time alone. And it provided a marked contrast with what was to follow. The message was so strong and of universal importance that everyone who drives to College, everyone who drives full-stop, and everyone planning to learn to drive, should see it - and should want to see it - and see it soon!
But nothing grabbed the attention more than the very powerful and vital messages shared by those who put together "Time and Place", all of them driving professionals; all of them helping young people to gain the ability and experience to drive; all of them determined that young drivers should be aware of the very real dangers of motoring whilst fully understanding the vital importance of safe driving.
Nothing grabbed the attention than the personal experience shared by Cassie's mother.
And nothing more than those unfilled, un-needed, 19 pairs of shoes.