Heatwaves
The Grim Reaper
No. 13 in a never-ending series. Summer 1995
Hayley Jones, aged 17, died on the 3rd May. I don't know her. All I know about her is that she died tragically young and was a victim of what has become a national health epidemic borne out of governmental complacency and our love for the motor car. Hayley Jones had an asthma attack as she was baby-sitting for her two young cousins in Liverpool. Detective inspector Ian Clark of Merseyside Police said, There is every possibility the heatwave may have sparked the asthma attack.
That night on the national weather forecast at the peak of the heatwave, the presenter declared, We've got high pressure, still weather and very warm temperatures over Britain and that means poor air quality across England and Wales.
So it's official then. The pollution is caused by hot weather and so it follows is the epidemic of asthma attacks.
Hang on a minute though, surely someone has forgotten to mention cars. Well, the Department of the Environment didn't think we had to worry about cars. They described air quality as good for the first 48 hours of the pollution crisis, despite the breaching of World Health Organisation standards for ozone at more than half of the UK's monitoring sites. When they finally acknowledged a problem, their advice was to the point. If your breathing suffers or you are asthmatic stay indoors and avoid exertion.
The Department of Transport didn't think the problem had anything to do with them either. They expressed confidence with their plans to widen the motorways around Bristol to eight lanes, to complete the destruction of Solsbury Hill at Bath and to drive a dual carriageway through the Blackdown Hills designated an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty
in Devon. Bye bye Blackdown Hills - yet another area you'll have to avoid on your weekend rides.
So Hayley didn't take the advice of the Department of the Environment to stay indoors. She was young and probably liked to go out and enjoy herself, and she paid the ultimate price for breathing foul air.
Each year there are more than 2000 asthmatics who will also die tragically prematurely and about 5 million others who will suffer breathing difficulties because we drive to school, to work, to the supermarket, to the cinema and to the seaside.
Until this selfish, greedy and corrupt government comes to its senses and puts human life before the interests of the petroleum and motor industries, I fear there will be thousands more like young Hayley Jones.
The Grim Reaper
