Damian James’ Blog: 27 July 2007

An automotive paradox

We had our fair share of rain last week in Bracknell with some minor flooding but when I saw the news over the weekend about some parts of the country I knew we had nothing to complain about.

I also heard on the news this morning that there is a heat wave in parts of Europe which has already killed 500 people. Crazy weather!

I was struck this week by a story about a postman who had his round cancelled on Saturday due to the floods. Saturday was a very important day for a lot of people due to the last instalment of Harry Potter being released and the houses on his round would not get their copies until Monday. The postman took it on himself to do his deliveries in his own car and naturally the Potter fans were delighted to receive their copy when they had assumed that there would be a weekend without reading.

The transport connection in this story (as there should always be one) was that the postman drove a 4×4 and therefore he could go through the floods where the normal post vans couldn’t.

After all the bad press that 4×4 vehicles and drivers get I saw this story as a little ray of light for this beleaguered sector. Its interesting to think that potentially global warming is caused in some way by 4×4’s but then they are the only vehicles that can be used when the effects are upon us. Is this an example of a automotive paradox?

I think it just goes to show that there will always be a need for 4×4’s so lets work together to make them more environmentally friendly rather than just labelling them all as bad.