Friday, November 02, 2007

Consequences? What consequences?

One of the more upsetting stories last week was the death of two little boys being killed trying to cross a motorway.

I was astonished when I heard a nearby resident say that they needed barriers and signs to warn the kids that the motorway is unsafe. My first thoughts were, "why on earth were two boys that young out by themselves playing with those scooters?". Now I am not a parent, so I suppose it is easy for me to judge... The father of one of the boys said that he tried to teach his son about the dangers of the motorway. But unfortunately the boys were still unsupervised. The dad also added that he thought there should be warning signs. Again, it is easy for me to judge, and it is perhaps unfair to expect a rational opinion from a grief-stricken parent, but he, and his neighbour, are completely missing the point.

It reminds me of a (thankfully far less severe) incident that I witnessed a couple of years ago. If you are familiar with your Highway Code, you will know not to block pedestrian crossings. The queue I was in was not far from a local school, it was shortly before 9am, and there were about three mothers with their kids waiting to cross. The lights were green, but I waited before the line in case they changed. Seeing that I had stopped, but not even glancing at the lights, one of the mums ushered her little one across. Like many boys of his age (about seven or so), he legged it across the road, straight into the path of an oncoming Ford Escort van. Things went into slow motion, as the driver of the van luckily saw the boy coming through the line of traffic, and managed to hit the brakes. Unfortunately she still hit the boy but mercifully at low speed.

After the boy bounced off the bonnet, the first thing he did was get up and run back to Mummy - in medical terms, this had to be a good thing. The van driver was obviously upset, the lights were on green and the boy would have come out of nowhere. The mother went mental at the driver, accusing her of jumping a red light. The driver quite rightly pointed out that the lights were on green. The mother pointed at my car, still sitting neatly behind the line, as proof that the lights must have been on red. My concern for the boy had now turned into anger at the mother for being so irresponsible and having the nerve to blame it on everyone but herself.

I was about to get out of the car and reassure the driver that she had done nothing wrong, but I realised that I was blocking the road, and there was a long queue in both directions. So I drove along about one hundred yards, until I was clear of the zigzags, and then pulled over, got out and walked back to the crossing. By this time, the parents and their entourage were moving on, and the van driver had given up, and not wanting to block the road, was driving on. So I never did get to set them straight...

When I got to work (all of about ten minutes later), I was obviously a little upset by this episode. At first, I tried to give the mother the benefit of the doubt, but I quickly revised my opinion - if you have kids, surely you don't take any chances with their safety, especially on the roads? If she had only looked up, she would have seen that the red man was still illuminated. The thing that gets me really angry is the fact that it is not her that could have paid the price for her recklessness, but her little boy.

Call me Mr Cynical, but I suspect that, to this day (around two years later), the mother will still be trying to convince herself that it was the van driver's fault...

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