• Impact disease
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In New Zealand they have coined a name for road accident injuries and deaths — they call it impact disease. Something, perhaps, to bring you up short and make you think. The name seems to have come from a Dr Randal Elliott, who at a recent Mobil road safety luncheon in Wellington claimed that "the steadily worsening disease" killed over 700 people a year there and injured 20,000 more — and he caused quite a stir when he alleged that over half of NZ's serious injuries and deaths were being caused by one per cent of male drivers — the major factor being alcohol.
No one has suggested that, even before the breath test, drinking was responsible for anything like this percentage of accidents in Britain; they must have a particular social problem down under.
Mobil's dedication to the cause of road safety in NZ is pretty broadly based; in the April issue of their Mobil Fleet News they devoted the entire centre spread to reproducing that incident which CM suffered when Trevor Longcroft had a test load of concrete blocks which shifted in a dramatic way.