When it’s close to you

Every day we hear on the radio or see on television car accidents that claimed the lives of people we don’t know. We might tut tut and worry about the road toll but that’s about all we do. It doesn’t impact on us coz we aren’t close to the victims.

It’s only when it’s close to you that it has any impact.

And by close to you I mean either that a friend or family member is involved, you witness it happening or it has happened near you geographically .

Last Saturday I was coming home from a training course and the service road to my home was blocked off by the police. “You can’t go there because there’s been an accident and someone has been killed,” the officer told me.

It was a fine and beautiful afternoon, no road hazards, good weather but a small sedan had veered into a tree in the centre of the median strip.

And a middle aged man lost his life… there on the road right in front of my house. A life snuffed out in an instant, just like that.

Although I didn’t know the victim I felt the grief that his family would feel. Because I was close physically I felt close mentally. It hit me like a ton of bricks!

It was a tragic loss of life on a beautiful day when that man should have returned home safely to his family after doing all the things he had to do.

It reminded me of how fragile life is and how the friends and relatives of that man will be hit by his loss. And how every day friends and relatives of other people have to come to terms with similar bad news.

It made me think that we accept the road toll and its senseless taking of lives. We really are only impacted by it when somebody dies who is close to us, either by relationship or geography.

Please drive carefully!