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Happy New Year! I hope like the FTSE100, it proves to be a better start than you originally expected. We all know it's going to be a tough ride but that's no reason not to tackle the challenges of 2009 with vigour and make a real difference over the coming year.
Unfortunately, the year has not started well for some. I think of the poor innocent children in Gaza for a start. Or, nearer to home, the good Samaritans caught up in my local Junction 10 M4 slip road tragic accident.
As l write this, details are still unclear as to exactly what happened. Albeit, the consequences were tragic with one man killed and another in hospital with serious head injuries. The sketchy details to have emerged so far indicate the driver who died had clipped the barriers after skidding on ice. Another stopped to help and both were caught up in a following driver's accident. The passengers of the latter vehicle were then struck by another car in what appears to have been an unfortunate domino effect. A woman, the passenger in the third of the four cars involved, was taken to hospital with head injuries but later released.
The accident has prompted a debate as to whether you should stop to assist the victims of an accident. Well, surely the answer has to be yes, but exercise extreme caution. The common advice is to ensure that you do not endanger yourself or the lives of those involved. If you are in a position of potential danger then exercise extreme vigilance.
Apparently, in France, it is now a legal requirement to carry a yellow reflective vest in the car to cover such contingencies, which seems to me to make eminent sense. That and the immediate display of a warning triangle ahead of the incident, be it an accident or straightforward breakdown.
Talking of breakdowns, I learned that more than 100 recovery drivers are killed each year on our roads while assisting another motorist. That is a horrific number and just goes to show that all drivers should exercise extreme caution when passing a broken-down vehicle. In the old days, we used to move over to the middle lane on motorways if a vehicle was stopped on the hard shoulder in order to give maximum room.
If you have not yet made a New Year resolution then this should be it. Don't forsake your fellow drivers if they have a problem but exercise due caution in going to their assistance and if you are passing by someone who is already being attended to then slow down and give them enough room. And, with my London to Paris bike ride hat on from last year, give cyclists a suitably wide birth too.
Here's to a safer year on the roads in 2009.
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