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| Summer Traffic The Costa Blanca News has just reported something we didn't want to hear: deaths on the road from Summer driving increased within the Valencia Community by 107%. Year over year (July and August), fifteen more people gave up their lives during those two months, from 14 lives lost in 2013 in 12 crashes, to 29 in 15 collisions in 2014. This is such a tragedy because we have been doing so well as losses through driving have been steadily falling. The one thing that can be said on a positive note is that the national trend is still down over last year at the same time, so hopefully at year's end we will be able to draw some comfort from lower figures overall. To die as a result of driving usually means that someone failed to do what should have been done, or did something that he should not have. A simple example is a failure to take care if you are a cyclist or motorcyclist to be sure to be seen, in order to lessen the chance of being struck by a car. It has been very noticable to me this year how a person on a bike just disappears into the landscape if the car driver is wearing sun shades. Such glasses are necessary to avoid being blinded by the sun, however, they do dampen the image generally. We notice that the police, emergency personnel and road crews all wear reflective apparrel that stand out against the general landscape and identify them as humans. I know no-one pays the least attention to what I say, but in the interest of self preservation I would think that each individual would like to lessen becoming a part of such heartbreaking statistics. I'm just saying! Copyright (c) 2014 Eugene Carmichael |
BE SEEN TO BE SAFE !
