Car accidents kill. Will you be next?

                                                                                         

This country’s roads have never been as busy as they are today. Millions upon millions of cars crawl along our motorways in huge traffic jams, pumping out deadly fumes that destroy our environment and poison our bodies.

Huge clouds of exhaust fumes hover endlessly above the M25 and the M1, blocking out the sun and blackening the grass that used to grow so green and lush on the roadside. Underneath the smog, the motorists sweat in their seats, keeping their windows firmly closed in an attempt to shut out the noxious gasses, whilst simultaneously blaring their horns in frustration at the seemingly unmoving queue of traffic ahead.

It’s certainly not what dear old William Blake was talking about when he spoke of England’s green and pleasant land. Jerusalem? Cesspools in Eden by the Dead Kennedys more like.

Endless pollution and frustration and heat and noise. Oh, driving in this country is so much fun.

But if all that’s not bad enough, every time we get behind the wheel there’s a reasonably high chance of becoming a statistic. And who wants to become a statistic? Nobody, that’s who.

More than three thousand people, 3,201 to be exact, lost their lives as a result of car accidents in 2005. That’s an average of 266 a month; 62 a week; more than eight a day. Eight people dying on our roads every 24 hours; that’s an enormous number of lives wasted for no good reason at all.

In addition to those killed, there were over a quarter of a million people injured on British roads last year, nearly 30,000 of whom suffered such serious personal injuries that they will be left with a painful reminder of what happened for the rest of their years.

We all think it’ll happen to somebody else, that it won’t be because of us that there’s a bunch of flowers propped by the roadside, but the sad truth is that it could be any one of us. Today, tomorrow, next month, in a couple of years; it could happen any time.

And the sad thing is that we won’t be ready for it. That morning when we get showered and dressed we won’t have a clue that it’ll be the last time we’ll ever feel water running through our hair or the last time we’ll ever tie a shoelace. We won’t plan to die that day and so we won’t get the chance to do the things we’d do if we were going away for ever and ever and never coming back.

Just to tell someone special that you love them or to say sorry for the horrible thing you said but didn’t mean. To smell the sweet aroma of cut grass, to feel the sun on your face or to feel someone’s lips on yours for the very last time. Nope, none of that. Nothing at all. Just wiped out in an instant. Life ends, life stops abruptly, no second chances. No quarter to be asked for and none to be given.

Because that’s what car accidents do. They destroy, they wreck and they maim. They cut life off in an instant and there’s no going back.

You might still be thinking it’s not going to happen to you, so just keep reading for a little longer and then ask yourself if you still feel the same way.

Picture Billy. He was 26 years old with an infectious laugh and a smile that would brighten up even the darkest day. With spiky blonde hair, twinkling blue eyes and a wicked sense of humour, everyone he met instantly warmed to him and there wasn’t a soul on Earth who had a bad word to say about him.

In June 2004 he married Ruth, his childhood sweetheart. They bought a house together on the west coast of Scotland and settled down for what was going to be the rest of their lives together.

One Monday morning, exactly six months after his wedding day, Billy kissed Ruth goodbye, like he did every morning, and got in the car for his daily drive to the office. He left early that day because he wanted to knock off half an hour earlier than normal as Ruth was taking him out for dinner. She hadn’t told him why but he presumed it was a six month anniversary dinner. He was looking forward to it.

She waited at the front door in her dressing gown, like she did every morning, until he rounded the bend at the end of their road and disappeared from view, before she went back in the house and got herself ready for work.

She was looking forward to their evening out too. She’d booked a table at a beautiful cosy restaurant a couple of miles away and was really excited about it. She had something to celebrate and it wasn’t just their mini anniversary.

Because Ruth had found out a few days before that she was pregnant. She was going to be a mummy and Billy was going to be a daddy. She was so excited that it had been hard to keep it a secret, but somehow she’d managed and was counting down the hours until she could tell Billy and see the smile that she so loved.

But Billy would never know. He would never find out that he was going to be a father because, by half past seven, the time the table was booked for, he would be dead. His body, or what was left of it, would be laid out in a mortuary and never again would the world be blessed by that beautiful dazzling smile.

He was killed in a car accident as he rushed home from work that very afternoon. His Ford Mondeo was hit by a lorry on a quiet country road and the impact was so severe that he died instantly from massive head injuries. The lorry driver had been on the phone at the time and didn’t see Billy until it was too late.

As Ruth stood on the doorstop watching Billy drive away that morning she had no way of knowing that it would be last time she’d ever see him. They had their whole life ahead of them, and although he didn’t know it, they were going to be parents. There was nothing more perfect in the whole world.

But Billy’s life was snatched away in an instant by that lorry, and in the same moment Ruth’s changed forever.

“He was my darling, my rock, my world,” Ruth later said.

“I’d give anything, absolutely anything, to just have two more minutes with him to make sure he knew how much I loved him and how much he meant to me. He was going to be a daddy and he would have been the best daddy ever. I wish he could’ve known that.”

Over four hundred people attended Billy’s funeral, a testament to the wonderful individual that he was, and as the mourners filed out of the church on a cold winter morning, they were joined by Barry White’s ‘You’re my First, my Last, my Everything’, chosen by Ruth for reasons that are only too obvious.

Car accidents, as Ruth and Billy’s story so tragically shows, ruin lives.

They could happen to you, they could happen to me or they could happen to a loved one and they only take a second to create untold pain and unhappiness.

A small minority of road accidents happen and there’s nothing that anyone can to do stop them. Mechanical failures, bad road surfaces and awful weather can be solely blamed for a few accidents, but the majority are down to irresponsible, reckless and dangerous driving.

So when you next get behind the wheel, just think about that. We’re all guilty of breaking the speed limit now and then but speed limits are there for a reason and speed, as the slogan says, kills.

A couple of seconds’ lost concentration is all that’s needed to cause a car accident. The time it takes to answer your mobile phone or to change a CD. That’s all it takes and that couple of seconds, as Ruth and Billy found out, really can be the difference between life and death.

Billy was a friend of mine. If you think it’s not going to happen to you, then think again.

About the author:
Car Accident Advice Line http://www.car-accident-claim.com helps people to claim compensation after they have been injured in a car accident that was not their fault. You can call us now on 0808 143 43 42

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