Fastest with the mostest

Making for home last Friday, still on the York bypass, and about 13 miles to go, I was passed by an all-sounding - all-flashing - police vehicle, going fastest with the mostest. It was joined in the journey by an ambulance and, on reaching the A64, another police vehicle, followed rather closely by a further (unmarked) police vehicle, all heading in the direction I was going and all finally joining several other vehicles which had approached from the Malton direction, at Welburn junction.

I don't think I've seen quite such a gathering of blue lights before. At a guess there would be six police vehicles, two ambulances and a fire appliance (or two).

We folk making in the direction of Malton were directed through the village of Welburn, after which, help yourself, and which in itself became a bit of a shambles as the road become blocked somewhere before Easthorpe with a broken-down vehicle, and some of us did a smart about-turn and came home via Slingsby.

Until the arrival of all the police vehicles the road had been open, as the crash vehicles were on the wide grass verge, and with a PC at either end of the scene, a steady traffic flow could have been maintained, and hundreds of folk needn't to have been sent miles out of their way. At least that's how it used to be done! I read that the road had been closed for four hours. Well, that was three less than the previous major closure, but still, far too long.

The mere fact of closing the road as soon as a crash happens simply extends the whole affair. Gone is the need for quickly attending to the necessary detail-gathering, there is now all the time in the world, and any urgency to clear the site appears to have disappeared. In any event, I question the need for all the people who centred in. With umpteen policemen, fire crew and ambulance crews, I doubt if there was a job for them all. In the 50s and 60s no man or vehicle attended a crash without the authority of a controller at HQ, despite many pleadings to be allowed to go, to break the monotony, and I wonder if the same applies today.

Whilst attending to the injured is a number one priority and getting them off to hospital, then the urgency is over, and apart from a measure up, the next priority is to keep the traffic flowing and it seems to me that this needs some looking at.

What has happened to education I know not - well, insofar as spelling is concerned. Spotted between Malton and York I see huge roadside banners at a caravan outlet bearing the words 'midd way', and I wonder why those responsible didn't just blot out one of the letters. Perhaps it wasn't thought important. And on an advert on a supermarket display I notice a motorcycle offered for sale in good order apart from a 'feu scraches'.

The roads today can be fraught with danger, which thought crossed my mind when returning from Elvington on Monday, and approaching one of the several villages en route. A 'London' type taxi was approaching me on a fairly narrow road, off-side front wheel already over the white centre line and which seemed to be coming nearer to my side. I was prepared to take a dive on to the grass verge when the driver corrected his 'drift'. This meant taking his eyes off the book he was reading, propped on the steering wheel, and happily we passed each other without incident.

I had a call today from a reader in Hartoft, who'd got his Gazette & Herald before I had got mine and he mentioned to me about the forthcoming cessation of putting the number of the next collection into that little slot on the front of letter-boxes. This little number tab has always been an indication that either you've 'caught' the post, or missed it and it gave you the indication of when the next collection was. Now it's going to be a thing of the past, and a call from the village to question this received the response that the continuation of an indication of when the next collection would be, was unfair competition with those new agencies which, I gather, are entering into the mail business. The world gets dafter!

U-turn headlines, I see, over Fylingdales. What next. Haven't our ministers the courage of their own convictions? As I see it, it is as much for our own defence as for the US that the base is kept up-to-date, and we should welcome such a move. What fears there are, are difficult to appreciate, for today's weaponry is accurate to a degree, and if not of that variety then any nuclear weapon is accurate to a degree, and if not of that variety than any nuclear weapon wouldn't need to be selective. To be prepared is commonsense, and we have lived with Fylingdales for so long now surely it's rather late to be complaining. What our MP is after when he questions what Ryedale will get in return, confuses me to some extent. We get a share in the defence of our country, but I fear the subject has already turned political and, whilst the current regime doesn't give us much confidence, politics and financial reward should be non-starters.

You gotta laff! "Being an MP is the sort of job all working-class parents want for their children - clean, indoor and no heavy lifting." Diane Abbott, 1953 - British Labour politician.

Updated: 10:17 Wednesday, February 26, 2003