I drove back from Edinburgh on the M90 today listening to the reports of the dreadful crash and loss of life on the M4 at Newport – car pursued by police turns onto motorway heading in the wrong direction. A couple of years ago, I was driving on the M1 back to Portadown from visiting my mother in Belfast – passing some lorries on a long straight stretch – car in the distance – coming towards me. It is an extraordinary thing when you expect a car to be travelling with you to find that it is closing at 150 mph. I found a space between two lorries and dived. My sister was with me: ‘I heard somebody screaming and realised it was me.’ We were very lucky.
The driver of the other car had a history of drug abuse – had come onto the motorway and been involved in a minor accident. While being interviewed by the police, he got back into his car, turned around and drove off. He was killed in a head-on collision about a mile behind us. Fortunately the occupants of the car he hit had only minor injuries.
Like the chap that I am, I headed off down to church and conducted Evensong. We didn’t sing, ‘O for a closer walk with God’
Glad to hear you’re safe. Those motorways over in Britain are really terrifying to this Canadian who is used to big wide prairies and big wide roads to go with them.