Ecstasy Of Safety

Deaths from the drug ecstasy in England and Wales are doubling. At first sight a shocking headline. But compare the number involved, 40, with the number of people killed in motoring accidents, 3,443, and the problem seems to be attracting far more attention than it deserves. Any death is tragic, but we are killing over five times more children on our roads (218 in 2000) than ecstasy is killing in our nightclubs.

Road traffic accidents are the most common cause of death among children and most of those children were pedestrians. If we were to start treating these motorists as the pariahs they are and denigrating them as we do the drug dealers who sell pills to our children things might just start to change. The problem is they are all people like you and me. They do not deliberately or knowingly set out to cause harm to others for our own financial gain. They just drive a car.

The suggestion we target the motorist by preventing them from speeding or prosecuting them for any infringement of the Highway Code is seen as an infringement of civil liberties. ‘Haven’t the police got better things to do?’ you cry. Its time we all focused on the biggest threat to our children’s lives – the way we all drive. Perhaps when it is safe for a child to walk down the pavement we should start to worry about drugs like ecstasy not before.

Motor Motor Everywhere But Not A Sale In Sight

Car sales fall 59%; next years motor show is cancelled; motor production is on a go slow; its all doom and gloom in the world of motoring. ‘Its a fight for survival’ cries a representative of the automobile industry. ‘Give us some money, pay motorists to change there old cars for new ones’, cry the big motor companies. Er. Why.

People are loosing their jobs faster than MPs can count their expenses, what do the big car companies expect. Who is going to blow their redundancy on a new car? Who is going to borrow money in today’s uncertain financial climate to buy a new set of wheels? It would be madness to do anything other than keep what you’ve got, polish up the bodywork, shine the chrome and clean the dashboard.

The modern car, being one bought within the last ten to fifteen years, is far more reliable and rust proof than the Friday night models that we used to get offered. Cars used to turn a rusty brown faster than a rotting apple, leaked oil, rattled and broke down whenever there was or wasn’t an R in the month. Now they come with every accessory you might ever need, only need servicing when there’s a solar eclipse and still look good after ten years of hard driving. Buy a new car? No, not for the next five years.