She says...

Press, 17 September 1976, Page 6

She says...

Mention in a news programme the other night of the possible advantages of showing the gruesome reality of motor accidents to the public has set me thinking. I’ve had the odd glimpse into the horror of such accidents — a small child I know being bowled over by a car which stopped in to time to ensure no injury, a cat knocked half dead and left to die in paroxysms of pain — but no one close to me has suffered badly in a car crash, and I’m sure this is the only reason why I can cope with the idea of road accidents. They happen all the time —l’m aware of them but shielded from them, and like most people, I prefer not to think about them. Yet it’s people like you and me, presumably, who are involved in accidents, or whose loved ones are, and I wonder therefore if we should be so protected from their actuality.

Our society seems to condone the right of individuals to control potentially dangerous objects, namely cars, and yet shudders at the thought of recognising the full consequences. A few years ago in Vienna I was looking at a magazine in a restaurant (of all places) when I came across a series of photographs too horrible to describe. An attractive young woman in a Volkswagen had been involved in an accident and died, but the bold colour photographs and the detail captured made it an experience rather th. i a passing glimpse. I couldn’t read the German but presumed the idea was to shock people into driving more carefully, and it has certainly had a lasting effect on me. It also put me off the meal, though I think that was a small price to pay if I’ve avoided an accident because of it.—Morag.