Felix suggests that our new web project might be too much in bad taste. It might be offensive to the victims or to their families. He suggests that perhaps we might want pictures of the dead and dying, just to be truly tasteless.<\/p>\n
You know what? If I thought, for one moment, that posting such pictures would decrease the death toll on the roads, would make people stop and think about how fucking stupid it is to get into a tonne of metal and hurtle around in it at speeds close to 100mph; or how irresponsible the “Just one won’t hurt,” thought is – I’d do it in a heartbeat. I’d post a photograph of an 18 year old kid, blood frothing from his lungs because the steering wheel has smashed in his ribcage, his skull slick from multiple scalp lacerations and a fractured skull, slick with that special viscous blood that looks like seedless raspberry jam.<\/p>\n
I’d do that. I’d do that if it meant people would start thinking about the consequences of their own actions.<\/p>\n
ROADS AREN’T DANGEROUS. TREES AREN’T DANGEROUS. PEOPLE ARE FUCKING DANGEROUS.<\/b>\n<\/p>\n
Brenda. Died. Crushed between a house that fronted the road and the trailer attached to a tractor whose driver picked a really stupid place to overtake. Was she responsible? No. She was a victim. She was a victim of the “I’m all right Jack” mentality that epitomises modern British car culture. You could hear it in the locals down the pub afterwards:<\/p>\n
“They should demolish those houses.”<\/p>\n
“That road’s far too dangerous for cyclists to use.”<\/p>\n
And where the trees are concerned, the question is not about just how poor the driving must have been for the car to end up smashed into pieces, wrapped around a big tree.<\/p>\n
“They should chop it down! Burn it!”<\/p>\n
Blame everything but the person behind the wheel of the car whose inattention caused it to smash into an immovable giant plant. Maybe the dead weren’t drivers. Maybe they were passengers. You know what: if more people exercised their right to say to their friends: “You are fucking scaring me, mate. I do not want to be in this car with you. Stop and let me out,” then maybe, just maybe, people would start to feel the peer pressure that’s needed to get them to drive with due care and consideration.<\/p>\n
If more people were able to say to the driver: “You are driving this thing like it’s made of cardboard. It’s not. It’s made of metal and plastic and heavy shit that’s going to cause damage when it hits,” then we might getting somewhere.<\/p>\n
But car culture is about the Jeremy Clarksons of this world. It’s a violent, thuggish world with no respect and no sense of decency. Sorry if paying it back in kind offends you but I’m offended more by the social attitude that makes me feel it’s necessary.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Felix suggests that our new web project might be too much in bad taste. It might be offensive to the victims or to their families. He suggests that perhaps we might want pictures of the dead and dying, just to be truly tasteless. You know what? If I thought, for one moment, that posting such […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-737","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-miscellany"],"yoast_head":"\n