I was all prepared to post today about how living in the fastest growing part of Australia (officially) is becoming a pain, even if the growth figure of just under 10,000 extra people in 5 years came off a low base of 50,000. Every day or two I’m now having to deal with banked up traffic..not total traffic jams, but close there to it, I even thought to grab a snap this morning:
On the way back from dropping the golden child off to school, as I rounded a bend maybe 3 minutes from home, just short of the Collie River Bridge (Australind ByPass) I came across a horrific accident. 2 cars and a truck. The 2 cars had vered off the road and rolled. It looked like the driver of the Commodore had been pulled out and gone to hospital, the car wasn’t in a good shape but it still had some shape. The white 4WD (maybe a Honda smallish 4WD) was rooted and the Police had put up white sheets around the car, a sure sign that there was at least 1 dead body in the vehicle. The Truck was pulled up to the side of the road, the only evident damage looked like a scrape to the front left hand side. It could have been me. If it wasn’t for the old folk with their caravans heading North after the long weekend I could have been there 15-20 minutes earlier. Thankfully my impatience in queueing earlier saw me divert to some shops to grab a few things. Someone today lost a father, a mother, a child. Maybe I’m just getting old myself, but life is short, and who am I to complain about traffic when someone lost their life. Perspective is a wonderful thing, a double edged sword perhaps, but it does make you think.
Increasing population always brings to traffic jams. The way out is too use public transport. Of course if you live in town
I’ll second the quiet “taking things for granted” notion that we’re all guilty of — I know I am.
Cheers
t
Remember Manhattan? There are 10k people in one smallish office building.