Another email alert from the DSA:
Drivers warned of deer accident risks
As autumn approaches, the Highways Agency is asking drivers to watch out for deer, particularly at dawn and dusk. Every year, people are killed or injured in road collisions with wild deer around England. There have been over 2,000 recorded deer-vehicle collisions since January 2009 on the motorway and A-road network alone.
74,000 deer-vehicle collisions each year
It is estimated that there are up to 74,000 deer-vehicle collisions every year in the UK. Most deer are killed, but thousands are left to die of injuries. Periods of highest risk are autumn and spring, and around dawn and dusk. A key to reducing the number and severity of deer-vehicle collisions is to for drivers to be ‘deer aware’. This means you should slow down and watch out when you see deer close to the road.The DeerAware programme aims to raise public awareness of the danger of wild deer on the roads and reduce the number of collisions. New publicity material is now available, targeting local deer collision ‘hotspots’.
Read more about the DeerAware programme on DirectGov
When I’m doing the emergency stop briefing, there is a true story I always tell my pupils to hammer home the importance of speed and being able to stop promptly and in control. It is part of the “what if” scenario – things you have little control over.
A few years ago I was driving through the Cotswolds. It was slightly misty, and at the time of year when the deer seem to go nuts during the rut. I think it was on the A429 or A424. I was heading North, and there was a Ford Transit, a Ford Ka, and then me driving along. All of a sudden, a herd of deer leapt out through a gap in a hedge – there must have been more than a dozen of them – and the Transit slammed into them at close to 60mph (he wasn’t speeding or anything).
It was like a Bugs Bunny cartoon in some respects. The air just filled with deer, they were jumping everywhere in panic!
The Transit driver couldn’t really have done anything, but the thing I remember most of all was that his engine literally fell out on to the road. There was oil and water everywhere, along with injured deer. It’s that part I emphasise: the damage that could be done if you were to drive into, say, a child or other person.
Well done AG, who passed with 4 driver faults this afternoon.
My understanding is that the EU has stated that a controlled/emergency stop must be carried out on all driving tests, but in the UK this has been interpreted to mean any sort of stop where the candidate has to control the car to avoid hitting something. So although some tests will involve the familiar “emergency” version (1 out of every 3), the rest will incorporate pulling up behind a parked vehicle or other obstruction. In fact, this is already done, prior to the “moving off at an angle” procedure candidates are already expected to demonstrate.
I was playing a doubles match that Saturday, and I went for a dropshot. I felt something give in my leg – it was somewhat more uncomfortable than a normal sports-related sprain or tear, but not agony or anything. I had a job walking that night, but although it got a little better over about 6 weeks it was obvious it wasn’t going to get properly better. I went to see my GP and he immediately discovered it was a torn Achilles (almost – but not quite – a complete tear). I won’t go into all the details of the operation and subsequent infection, but from the moment I did it I went from doing all that exercise to doing absolutely no exercise at all. I wanted to start playing squash again, but having moved into this job there was no way I could risk doing it again and not being able to drive. So I just stayed lazy – and sedentary.
The next day – Friday, which I’d booked off work, planning to get some other stuff done – I called my GP and went in to see the surgery nurse. She couldn’t get a reading either – eventually, one was recorded at 210/120 or something like that. For anyone who doesn’t know, that is bloody high. She called in one of the doctors, and I was immediately referred to the Acute Medical Unit at the hospital. I spent the whole day there having blood tests, ECGs, and x-rays.