Dec 15th = Crash Day

[Not Responding]

From the Guardian:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/transport...1373866,00.html

Motorists should ease off the accelerator today and suppress any
latent road rage - if only for 24 hours.
A leading insurer has warned that December 15 is the most crash-prone
day of the year, with accident claims spiking to an annual high.

Ten days before Christmas, shoppers and partygoers have a tendency to
hit the roads with a vengeance.

Lloyds TSB Insurance has revealed it received 250 claims on December
15 last year, compared with an average of 145 for the rest of December
and just one a day for much of January.

A survey of 4,000 motorists found that one in 10 admitted speeding
over Christmas and 5% said that they had got behind the wheel when not
entirely sober.

The AA's head of road safety, Andrew Howard, said: "More of us are out
and about at this time of year.

"There's a high risk of freezing fog or nasty weather on the roads."

He urged motorists to slow down, but not too much. "The idea is for
everybody not to have an accident - not just you.

"If you slow down too much, you'll make the person behind overtake,
which won't do anybody any good."



Someone should really take the AA to task on that last bit. Surely
it's for each driver to slow down as much as they need to in order to
be safe. Drivers should not be told by the AA Safety head that they
should be trying to drive to the ability and design of the driver and
car behind.


I also remember this story from a couple of years back. But the danger
date that time was October.

Dave Larrington

[Not Responding] wrote:

> From the Guardian:
>
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/transport...1373866,00.html
>
> Motorists should ease off the accelerator today and suppress any
> latent road rage - if only for 24 hours.
> A leading insurer has warned that December 15 is the most crash-prone
> day of the year, with accident claims spiking to an annual high.

Well, yesterday was the third day in a week on which I've been held up by
the results of an RTA whie commuting. Last Thursday a pedestrian knocked
down by a truck (ouch), Monday a collision between a motorcycle and a car
and last night one between a bendybus and a car.

Today, by contrast, appears to be "Ignore Box Junctions Even More So Than
Usual Day"

--

Dave Larrington - http://www.legslarry.beerdrinkers.co.uk/
World Domination?
Just find a world that's into that kind of thing, then chain to the
floor and walk up and down on it in high heels. (Mr. Sunshine)

Richard

Dave Larrington wrote:

>>Motorists should ease off the accelerator today and suppress any
>>latent road rage - if only for 24 hours.
>>A leading insurer has warned that December 15 is the most crash-prone
>>day of the year, with accident claims spiking to an annual high.
>
>
> Well, yesterday was the third day in a week on which I've been held up by
> the results of an RTA whie commuting. Last Thursday a pedestrian knocked
> down by a truck (ouch), Monday a collision between a motorcycle and a car
> and last night one between a bendybus and a car.

Last night saw a city-wide experiment here in Sheffield, where motorists
didn't use their indicators but instead relied on telepathy to indicate
their intentions.

The experiment is ongoing.

R.