news from an alternative reality
It happened as I watched BBC News 24 showing a wobbly aerial view of the train crash in Cumbria. The screen flickered and changed to show a different report, with presenters unfamiliar to me.
A headline scrolled across the bottom of the screen: Elderly woman dies in road accident
The camera cut to a reporter standing in a narrow lane. Behind her, a police cordon cut off the road.
“It seems”, she said, “that the, ah, Volkswagon Polo driven by the dead woman’s daughter was proceeding along Tykes Lane, towards the village of Little Sledhill, at 10 o’clock this morning when it was in collision with a white van. Police have cordoned off a large area around the site of the accident and, as you can probably see behind me, accident investigators have arrived and are beginning to examine the scene. Earlier I spoke to Detective Bagshaw of the West Yorkshire Police Highways Division”
A tired looking policeman leant towards the camera.
“All we can say, at this point, is that we are looking at the condition of the tarmac on the road.”
Back in the studio, the presenter paused a moment to look at a sheet of paper lying on his desk, then looked up at the camera.
“We have reports that Highways Engineers are studying the condition of the road surface on thousands of roads throughout Britain. We can now speak to- Ah, hang on, we have reports coming in of another accident in North London. It seems that a young man, a pedestrian, was killed when he was hit by a Rover 400. We’ll bring you more on that as it comes in. Oh wait, we have yet more reports of traffic accidents. Two people have been seriously injured in an accident on the M4 and a car has left the road outside Stevenage killing three people. Ah, it appears that the Prime Minister is making a statement. We can go to Downing Street live right now.”
The screen cut to a crowded Downing Street. The Prime Minister was answering a question.
“Look, the road network will stay closed for as long as it takes to make it safe. You know, I’m sure that, like me, you have all been shocked by this terrible death toll today. Clearly we must do all we can to ensure it doesn’t happen again. Safety has to be our first priority.”
The television showed a reporter standing on the deserted carriageway of the M1 when the image flickered again, and went dark. I stared at the blank screen a moment, then got up and made a cup of tea.
The road outside was unusually quiet. I could hear birdsong.