A weekly column reproduced from the Bristol Evening Post

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Remember when your child reached the age of two and you had to clear the house of any sharp or breakable objects that would be within a toddler’s grasp?

And nail up the kitchen cupboards to keep the bleach out of reach? Even though it was only cheap supermarket own-brand stuff? Well that’s the kind of world some people would have us live in today.

There’s been an appalling outbreak of mass hand-wringing after the Selby train crash. Five separate inquiries are underway. Denied the chance to blame the railways again, all and sundry have been demanding “urgent measures” to ensure that the tragedy couldn’t happen again.

Well of course it won’t happen again. It was a million-to-one chance that the Land Rover ended up on the track just as those two trains were coming. But try telling that to the various rent-a-quotes wheeled out by the media. One bloke even demanded crash barriers along every stretch of motorway.

That might do something for the British steel industry, but it’ll do bugger all for my pay packet. I’m already keeping a tower block full of single mums in pizza and oven chips.

Accidents happen. Just accept it. And then go running to Claims Direct.(What a dreadful advert. “Johnny’s mother wanted something done. So did we.” Yeah, right. A few grand in her pocket, a few more in yours and enough money to employ three teachers taken out of the education budget. Scum, the lot of you.)

The way the bleeding hearts are going, we soon won’t be allowed out of our houses without wearing full-body, protective, padded boiler suits. And cycle helmets.

The same namby-pamby attitude was apparent on the long, straight, stretch of country road I used to get to work yesterday morning. I dared, yes dared, to overtake another car. There was nothing coming for at least a mile, the road was dry and the bloke in the car in front was wearing a trilby and doing 35mph. It seemed the right thing to do.

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