Close Call

We do not want to labour the seat-belts compulsion thing, but in view of the letter from Mr. Harold E. Parkin in the November 1982 issue and another last month quoting the legal aspects of Government responsibility for fatalities resulting from being compelled to wear a seat-belt under Criminal Law, it is worth quoting from a newspaper cutting sent to us by yet another concerned correspondent. The Nottingham Evening Post reported on a driver who, while stationary in the Meadow Lane railway overbridge, sensed that an approaching lorry was about to hit the bridge and overturn, crushing his car. He just had time to fling himself to the passenger-side, escaping with a bruised back and a cut head, after his legs had been trapped under the steering wheel. Had he been belted-in, he would have been dead, it is reported. Some time earlier a lady had a similar escape.

As our correspondent says, had the Law compelled that driver to wear his seat-belt at that time, Mrs. Chalker would presumably have passed off his death, if she condescended to comment, as just one unfortunate happening. Which would have been of great comfort to the dead gentleman’s wife. — W.B.