A close shave at the crossroads
7th March 2009


Last week, on a sunny morning in the broad heartland of the Canterbury Plains, a farmer drove through a give way sign and into the oncoming path of my wife. Sylvia had time for just one thought - “how do I get out of this?” - to which the only answer was: “you don’t.”

She hit the farmer’s ute at 100km/hr. The force of the impact and the momentum of the vehicles carried them 30 metres down the side road, past a young man waiting for a school bus and onto a grass verge.

By a miracle they both walked away from the impact; battered, bruised and broken, but alive.

I shall write no more about the crash because it is, as they say, before the courts.

Besides, we’ve been caught up in the aftermath, which is where this story lies. Sylvia is gradually returning to health. Her bruises are a landscape by Constable. She suffers dizzy spells and says it feels like she’s stepped off a boat after several weeks of constant partying in high seas.

Of less importance, but greater distraction, is the problem of the car, the front half of which looks like a bowl of breakfast cereal. It must be replaced, and soon, for Sylvia needs it when she returns to work.

I have written before about how bad we are at shopping. Breakfast cereal is probably one of the few things we purchase with confidence, so the prospect of buying a new car fills us with despair.

Our car purchases in the past have been few but simple, usually involving an upgrade from a really old car to a slightly less old car. Now we find that last week’s event has made us gun-shy. Now we are thinking about airbags and ABS brakes. Now we are looking at cars that can save your life…

…and are economical

…and affordable

…and red.

It’s a minefield. Honestly, we do try. We spent most of last Saturday driving Mazdas around Dave Barlass’s sheep yards. We’ve trawled Trade Me, searched The Dog and Lemon Guide and downloaded Consumer magazine’s centrefolds. We’ve scoured car yards pleading silently for the perfect car to speak to us and grappled with tiptronics, pre-tensioning seatbelts and electronic stabilisers. But the nuances of design and engineering are over our heads. The pair of us walking into a car yard is like casting swine before pearls.

One thing, and one thing only, has resounded in my mind from all this research.

Crumple zones.

Crumple zones, if you didn’t already know, are those parts of the car that are designed to absorb the shock of a collision by collapsing – crumpling – in highly scientific ways. Our old Bluebird crumpled in a way that was less than scientific, but mercifully robust.

Sylvia’s next car needs lots of crumple zones. Ideally, it will be an enormous donut with vast spaces of steel, rubber and plastic surrounding a central seating position with multiple seatbelts. It will have crumple zones the size of the Gaza Strip.

That cuts out small modern cars where you sit with knees against radiator and tailbone brushing tail light. These have the crumple zones of a catwalk model. Some have rear ends so abrupt the whole vehicle looks like the front half of a real car.

And now the penny drops. Of course! This is why so many people who don’t seem to need them possess huge 4WD vehicles. The ‘Fendalton tractor’ is all about safety, not status as I’ve always thought. What we need is a Toyota Landcruiser.

But wait a minute, there’s a trap in this. When you’re sitting in the middle of a big 4WD, secure in the knowledge that you’re going to come out on top in any mishap, there must be a subtle shift in how you see the road and your fellow travellers.

Perhaps you become a little more casual about safety and courtesy. Perhaps you don’t bother to look too closely as you approach give way signs, or maybe you roll across intersections as if you were out the back of the farm.

I know that’s unreasonable. Forgive me. We came so close to disaster.