Driving home for Christmas? Make sure you get there in one piece
Chris Rea is doing it again. As the festive hit song has it, he's driving home for Christmas once more.
But things have changed on our roads since Mr Rea decided to take his first journey oh so long ago in 1986.
The amount of traffic has increased, and since the pandemic something important has changed too, I contend.
Perhaps it's because Covid opened up the roads, showing what might be possible. Perhaps it's because our mental health has suffered.
But whatever the reason, I think people have become more blasé, more likely to take risks when behind the wheel.
Hardly a week goes by, hardly a day sometimes, without someone bashing into lampposts, hedges, trees, barriers.
On the newsdesk we report on crashes, incidents and the like every day. It does become somewhat repetitive but the human toll is immense.
We also attend inquests. I was at three opening inquests into people killed in road collisions only a few weeks ago.
Head-on crashes, collisions with trees. A stunning toll of human and family misery.
Things got so bad recently that Shropshire Fire and Rescue service issued an appeal for people to take care.
