Mark Story: Luck plays big part for many drivers

Take it easy out on the roads - fifteen people died in crashes in Hawke's Bay/Gisborne last year.

Sunday's crash in Waipawa which claimed the life of Bradley Charles Dobby struck close to home.

Not just in the sense I was born and raised in that same "oldest inland town in the country", but at this very intersection I once came within a whisker of shuffling off this mortal coil.

Back in seventh form, circa 1990, I was driving my mother's Mitsubishi hatchback with a friend. We were heading home after a day's picking at a local orchard.

Boys being boys I was a tad too heavy on the accelerator. The Ongaonga Rd intersection with SH2 materialised quicker than I'd gauged and I hit the brakes hard. Add some rain to the equation and the car skidded seamlessly, stopping halfway across the highway. Had any vehicle been heading north it's highly likely you wouldn't be enduring my ugly mug at the top of this piece.

There but for the grace of God, and all that.

Last year the district fared okay. Fifteen people died in crashes in Hawke's Bay/Gisborne, well down on the 15-year average of 23.

Yet statistics are cold comfort to Bradley's family. As Tukituki MP and Associate Minister of Transport Craig Foss said recently, toll numbers don't come close to articulating the pain. "Every figure represents not only the life lost but also grieving families, friends and communities."

I mention the above close call not to compare my own driving shortcomings to Sunday's tragedy, but to suggest perhaps many of us are alive today due to nothing more than luck - not because we're blue-ribbon drivers. Take it easy out there.