Accidents?

Did you ever wonder about  so-called accidents happen?

In perfectly good driving conditions during daylight hours two vehicles will collide. Before that happened in that exact same spot vehicles moving in opposite directions will have passed each other in the millions over the years, but along come these two, and Bam! Why did they do that and what did they do or fail to do?

It’s clear that after the passage of so many other vehicles they did something different that led to them crashing into one another, otherwise they would have glided on past each other as everyone else has done since time began. The realisation of that is quite something.

We are now considering the anatomy of an accident and the foregone conclusion is that it was not an accident at all. There are very few true accidents to happen on the roads. If I have a cold it’s very likely that I will sneeze while driving. When I sneeze I try not to close my eyes but inevitably I close my eyes. So, if I insist on driving with a cold and I sneeze and run into oncoming traffic that will not be an accident. It would be an unintended consequence of driving with a cold. It would be a crash and the law will hold me liable. However the world cannot stop because of a cold. Right?

If an animal that is a wild thing should suddenly dart into the road startling me and causing me to swerve around it because I would rather not run over it, and in the process of doing so I turn my car upside down without injuring or causing damage to property other than my car, technically this is a genuine accident that has occurred and I should logically not be charged with an offence.

I most likely will be charged with even something like a failure to drive with due care and attention. Well hey, the police have to make a living too and I will have caused a bit of bother to someone.

The worst case of something happening that would have been avoided if it were my choice is the consequences of falling asleep at the wheel. This is a tricky one and the cause of so many deaths on the road.

We are advised to stop regularly to rest on long journeys, at least every two hours. Perhaps we did  that in the first two hours, and now we need to stop sooner because as the day wears on we get more tired and we don’t recuperate sufficiently. The problem now is that we can’t find a proper rest area and we keep going until we find a place, but before we get there our eyes close just for a split second and that’s all it took. We never get to open them again.

Don’t sweat the police, your punishment this time will be stronger than anything the law has in mind.

That’s life!

Copyright © 2018

Eugene Carmichael