Editorial: Precaution essential for staying safe

Who can forget their first time?

I was in my teens. There were two of us in the car.  It was early afternoon on a sunny semi-rural roadside in my home town, Waipawa.

It was almost romantic, but not quite. First times, I'd suggest, are rarely so.  Needless to say it was all over in a few seconds.

I was scared breathless. They were, after all, emotions I'd never felt, sights I'd never seen.

But of all the new sensations it was the sounds that caught me truly off guard.

Seriously, recalling it still sends a shiver, like now, when I write this.

It was like being inside a fish tank when someone decided to smash it with a sledgehammer.  Add to this the punch of buckling metal.

The sound of two vehicles colliding at speed is in fact the most unnatural, haunting noise.

Our car had made a crazy u-turn in a 100km/h zone without looking. This forced an oncoming sedan to slam into the back of us.

My passenger seat shoved me hard in the back like a bully. Then eerie silence. 

No one was hurt. Thankfully the kids in the other vehicle were uninjured.

Their mother and driver, nursing a small cut on her forehead, justifiably abused us as her kids wailed and tugged at her skirt on the roadside.

It was by no means major - but it sparked a major seachange on how I travelled our roads.

That is, not very comfortably.

Actually it left me a cynic. Death and horror can be caused by the most trivial and bizarre action on our roads.

Speaking of bizarre, the frequency of truckies making headlines in Hawke's Bay Today has rankled with this reporter.

I started taking notice on February 7, when a truck jack-knifed on Te Aute Hill. (No other vehicles involved).

A week later, Valentine's Day, a big truck and trailer unit went over a bank near Te Pohue. (No other vehicles involved).

Less than a month on, another rig jack-knifed on Te Aute Hill. (No other vehicles involved).

I started thinking editorial, but ditched the idea.

Too precious, I thought. An anomaly.

Twelve days later a truck left the road and its trailer flipped. Its cargo left strewn across SH2 near Otane. (No other vehicles involved).

And as if that didn't cement my goal to devote some ink bemoaning their inattention, I arrived at work on Monday to a note stuck to my desk: "Truck has left the road in Takapau. Freight all over the road". (No other vehicles involved).

In most cases the truckies were left bewildered. As am I.

It's too early to talk culpability - but we can talk consequence. Namely, these colossal machines can weigh anywhere from 20 to 44 tonnes.

That's about 10 to 20 times the weight of an average car.

I'd hate to be inside a fish tank when that hammer hits.

Truckies, as well as the rest of us motorists, would be best to contemplate the consequences, particularly today, where the official Easter holiday period starts at 4pm.

So begins a weekend where "road toll" is as synonymous with this holiday as the Easter Bunny.

For me, slowing down is as easy as invoking the soundtrack of my first time.