CAN I make an appeal to everyone driving these dark nights? Please put your headlights on so that other people can see you.
I have seen quite a few cars driving in a queue and only displaying sidelights. As a lorry driver it’s my pet hate especially on motorways. I would like to explain why and hopefully make you think before you do this.
Most car drivers know the difficulty of overtaking a GV when it is raining hard. You catch up to the wall of spray being thrown up from the rear wheels of the lorry and vision through the windscreen is severely reduced even with the wipers going full speed.
Now consider my view of you. I am looking out of a rain-soaked side window into a mirror which again is wet through, trying to look back through this same wall of spray. I don’t have the benefit of wipers. I CAN’T SEE YOU IF YOU’RE DRIVING ON SIDE LIGHTS.
Imagine this scenario, it is peak time on the roads, the traffic is heavy, it’s dark and it’s raining. I am catching up to slower-moving traffic and will soon need to pull out to overtake. I am constantly monitoring and watching out for a gap in the long line of headlights coming up from behind me looking for a safe gap to pull out into. I am still having to watch the traffic in front as a priority.
I see what looks to be a gap in the traffic approaching from behind and signal to warn others of my intentions, I carry on checking both traffic in front and behind and when the gap comes near the rear of the truck I am ready to pull out when at the last minute I see it’s not a gap it’s some driver too stupid to realise the danger he is putting himself and his passengers in by driving on side lights.
When you are driving you should consider ALL other road users. What about that elderly person trying to cross the road, their eyes may not be as good as they once were, if it’s wet the lens of their glasses will be spotted by rain. They will see you much, much earlier if you have your headlights on.
Now consider children, as a driver you have a duty to look out for them and take extra care. Children come out of school usually excited, chattering and not thinking about road safety. They can and do suddenly decide to dash across the road. They may take a quick glance and go, if they see headlights they may stop, if they don’t see lights or your car they won’t.
As a driver you have a duty of care, to yourself, your family, your passengers, pedestrians and all other road users. Please think about this next time you’re out, it doesn’t cost any thing, even in a recession and it might save a life.
PUT YOUR HEADLIGHTS ON.
John Langford
Lepton
Think of the children...
I WENT to the exhibition of the proposed Tesco store in Holmfirth last week. As the very friendly, open and capable staff there pointed out, it has good claims to “Green” credentials.
However, as I pointed out to the staff, it’s not so much a case of “what” they plan. For me, it’s very much a case of “where”.
The biggest concern I have by far about the “where” is that it will be built on a road walked up and down every school day by loads of children on their way to and from the high school.
I mentioned this concern to the Tesco staff. They were genuinely concerned. They stressed the road safety improvements they knew would be needed, and which were a full part of their plans.
I was a teacher for 25 years. That experience led me to ask them if they had a road safety system chip which could be implanted into the heads of all the kids who use that road.
As one of the Tesco people said: “Well, you can lead a horse to water .... ”
Indeed. But to stretch the water analogy, you wouldn’t go and dig a deep pool by the side of a road you knew kids used, would you? Even if I didn’t have huge worries about how Tesco stores tend to bleed local businesses dry, that concern would be enough to persuade me to oppose the Tesco application.
Mr R A Vant
Holmfirth
Thanks for enjoyable day
ON behalf of everyone at St Mary’s Church in Honley I would like to thank all those who helped to make St Mary’s Christmas Market on Saturday such an enjoyable and successful day.
The support that St Mary’s received from the stall-holders, the visiting musicians, departments of Kirklees MC the countless friends of St Mary’s together with the crowds of visitors all helped (with the weather) to make the day so successful and rewarding.
Our grateful thanks to you all.
Clive Waind
Chairman St Mary's Street Market Committee
Is there mileage in this complaint?
REGARDING your story “More snow on way” (Examiner December 8). Have I missed something? Is it now official that Britain uses kilometres per hour as against miles per hour?
I refer to the statement by experts at Huddersfield University “wind speeds reached 100km per hour”. Statements similar to this are appearing on television and in newspapers more and more often giving distances in kilometres rather than miles, and speeds in kmph.
Could this be a government ploy to soften us up for the inevitable change to using kilometres rather than miles when Brussels finally gives the order to do so. Until then I wish that the guilty people would use miles (I believe that officially it is actually illegal not to, although the railways now use km internally).
I know that this is only a small gripe in the light of today’s problems, but even so I think a statement should be made, and even after the changeover takes place I will use five over eight to change km to miles to be able to visualise what speeds and distances are.
R Hanson
Golcar
A year on, let us see results
ON reading the Examiner (November 25) I learn that a “new” team has been set up by the South West Yorkshire Mental Health NHS Trust to help patients with mental health problems find work. What a difference a year makes!
Your readers will recall it is the same Mental Health Trust which to their shame closed the Vocational Enterprise Centre in December 2007. This was a result of a cost-cutting exercise.
Vocational Enterprise was successful in helping people back into the workplace, but it was more than that; it helped patients with enduring mental health problems to have a reason to be, a work place to go to and enabled them to do something worthwhile.
Never the less the decision was made, the work was deliberately slowed down and the enterprise closed. It was remarked by the professionals at the time that Vocational Enterprises would have to be re-invented under another name. Is this team the start of the re-invention?
Replacement offers do not match up to the facilities withdrawn. A follow up of the clients’ whereabouts was promised after a year. I would ask if any monitoring of the patients has been done and if it has, will the results be published?
B H
Huddersfield
Role of an MP’s dad
WORKING over 80 hours per week in the unforgiving field of politics you learn to grow thick skin. But every now and then a story comes along which disheartens you.
The Examiner’s On the web column (Dec 10) ran with the ground blazing sleaze revelation that I am the only MP in the country who employs his dad. Had you checked with me you’d have discovered that he is currently a volunteer. When he did work for me he was paid less than any other staff member, not just in my office, but probably less than any of the between 100-200 employees who work for an MP relative.
To put things in context you could have reported that at just over £100 a week – and not the £25,000 stated in the paper – my dad was paid substantially less than the wives of some Conservative Parliamentarians who earn as much as £54,000 per year. Or perhaps a Conservative MP’s son who despite studying full-time at Cambridge University managed to pocket £50,000 as a part-timer in his dad’s office. You could even have mentioned the Conservative Parliamentarian who claimed to have no financial interest in a company to whom he paid £760,000 in expenses – it transpired his wife and daughter are directors and the company is registered at their home!
I love my dad. But that’s not why he volunteers in my office. He has over 30 years experience as a local councillor and substantially longer as a community caseworker. Ironically you missed the real story – how I'm exploiting my elderly father by not paying him for the brilliant service he provides to my Dewsbury and Mirfield constituents.
Now I've got that off my chest – back to the thick skin.
Shahid Malik
MP for Dewsbury and Mirfield
When can killing be called ‘care’?
I WOULD like to congratulate Dr Jameson as the winner of the November letter of the month. He rightly argues that there comes a time when boundary pushing becomes unacceptable in regards of the Jonathan Ross/Russell Brand affair.
Dr Jameson’s A Senior Moment – “How can we blame the kids?” was equally challenging. As he points out Matthew 5, 6, 7, shows the path to the happy, fulfilling life.
What I think is extremely sad in this advent season is the fact that teenage girls in advance of Christmas will be able to obtain emergency kits of condoms and morning-after pills from chemists and clinics such as BPAS. This kind of action promotes promiscuity which lead to abortion and STDs.
Dr Dan Boucher of the Christian group Care said: “The suggestion that this is the answer to unwanted conceptions is an indictment of our culture. What we need is a cultural shift that encourages people to see the sexual act in the context of a stronger relationship framework rather than a one-night stand after a Christmas party.”
BPAS advertises emergency contraception, counselling and abortion care. I beg the question “When is killing a precious, helpless child, care?”
I am sure the time will come when every child will be a “wanted child”. And we shall recognise the beautiful and wonderful things around us, and our world will be one of abundance, education. love and peace, dispelling all the negativity with which we have surrounded ourselves.
Theresa Quarmby
Kirkburton
