A Brave Man (1)

Heading down the M6 yesterday morning on my way from Whitehaven to Oldham (I spent some time yesterday campaigning for Kashif Ali, the Conservative candidate in the Oldham East and Saddleworth by-election) I saw a highways maintenance vehicle on the hard shoulder a few hundred yards ahead, and then realised that there was a man in reflective garb on the left hand lane.

By the time I had realised this there was about three seconds for me to get into the middle lane to avoid hitting him. As I shot past him, I realised that he was signing to me and to following drivers to move right.

One covers a fair amount of ground at 70 mph, and I was not in sight of the highways maintenance man for very long at all. Buy as I flashed past him I thought I saw something odd about the road surface in that lane, which I would not have seen until far too late to avoid driving over it.

I can only presume that this gentleman had noticed a hazard in the road, had called for colleagues to come and cone that lane off, and in the meantime at considerable personal risk was directing drivers clear of the hazard.

Highway maintenance men have taken a good deal of flak lately over how they do their jobs, but I can only say that if this chap is remotely typical there are some of them who combine both considerable guts and a great deal of dedication.

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