Parliament united to remember the victims of Friday’s horrific M5 crash tonight, following an emergency statement by new transport secretary Justine Greening.
Parliament, as it does so well at times of tragedy, united to remember the victims of Friday’s horrific M5 crash tonight, following an emergency statement by new transport secretary Justine Greening.
Ms Greening told the House it would be “some weeks” before the cause of the crash, involving 37 vehicles, in which seven people were killed and 51 injured, will be known, adding she would “make sure that if there are any lessons to be learnt, those lessons will be acted upon”.
However, it was the human stories, the lives lost, the families left behind, not the politics or the questions or the investigation that struck home during the debate, most emotionally from Paul Flynn (Labour, Newport West) and Bob Stewart (Conservative, Beckenham).
Mr Flynn told the story of Tony and Pamela Adams, “who had been sweethearts for 50 years”.
Fifty. Years.
He described how:
“They were on a journey that they’d made many times before, and then within seconds, a normal situation descends into Hell on Earth.”
Col Stewart, meanwhile, spoke of those who had “the sad responsibility, if not duty, of identifying their friends or their family members”, recalling how it was something he himself had had to do:
“Twenty nine years ago I had the sad responsibility of identifying several friends who were killed in similar circumstances to what happened on the M5.”
As Ms Greening said in her earlier reply:
“There’s very little anyone would be able to say to their relatives at the moment that would provide any real comfort in this situation and under the circumstances of this tragedy, which the Honourable Gentleman points out happened instantaneously, which I think for families who lose people in those sorts of circumstances is a particular challenge to deal with.”
See also:
• 25 years of the M25: A reminder of what not to do with transport policy – Stephen Joseph, October 24th 2011
• The challenges facing new transport secretary Justine Greening – Richard Hebditch, October 17th 2011
• Pickles’s new national planning policy threatens motorway chaos – Sian Berry, August 30th 2011
• Daily Mail cherry picks data to bash life-saving speed cameras – Daniel Elton, August 24th 2011
• It shouldn’t be the case that prosperity means more traffic – Richard Bourn, June 15th 2011
5 Responses to “The human tragedies of the M5 crash”
Tom Skinner
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Caroline Hexter
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Barry Kirby
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David
As a man and van driver in the UK, I see a great importance of keeping a safe distance on the motorways, but I frequently see drivers on the motorways driving too close to the vehicle ahead and sometimes they are professional driver like myself, driving vans or even heavily loaded Lorries.
What I realise by talking to some of my colleagues at work is that drivers have this false sense of security because our motorways are in a fairly in good conditions and they drive at high speeds keeping very small distance from the rear of the vehicle in front. And if for any reason the vehicle in front has to suddenly hit the brakes, the vehicle behind is too close and wouldn’t be able to avoid a collision.
It is great that the highway police is constantly enforcing speed limits and maintenance of vehicles, but more attention should be drown to distance between vehicle as well, especially when whether condition and visibility are poor.
I am not jumping into conclusions, but I think drivers need to be more aware of the great danger of driving too close to each other and perhaps accidents such as the recent M5 crash could avoided or at list minimized.