This is an ex-Rant that changed as I rode in & reflected. It may contain some graphic description, and will certainly have unsettling content.There was a he-yuge queue of motor traffic into Clapham. Not very unusual, but much more static than usual. Alert. All senses working, looking for the problem.Ah. There's a wagon with trailer stuck in a right turn, blocking both directions. Why on earth would he be even attempting that? At least there was a Police Officer there to sort it out.Getting past, it becomes quickly apparent that there's more to it. There's another Officer, and he's stood in the middle of the road redirecting traffic. No arguments; there's a tape behind him from side to side, blocking the whole road.'Cyclists? You can pass.'OK, but I dismounted to walk on the pavement. Most of us did. And I walked past three ambulances and two large fire engines, with various Police vehicles.And in the middle...In the middle of all this was a Fiat. About eight firefighters, paramedics and Police were clustered around the car. It's roof had been cut off, large cutting tools were laid aside and I assume they were about to lift the driver out of the vehicle. Maybe he was still alive, and perhaps he could be saved.Beside that scene was an empty stretcher, waiting. And there was another stretcher, with a black tarp over it, and the vague outline of a body. A person. A road user. Another black tarp covered a bulk I would guess to be a motorbike, half on the pavement.We got a good view, but I don't like to gawp, so I kept moving. pedestrians and shopworkers had clustered nearby and were watching and discussing.At the other end of the scene, a Police car was parked blocking the road, shielding the operation, and a timber lorry was stopped just beyond the left turn into the back streets where the cars heading up the hill were being diverted.A grim scene, a solemn tableau and a memento mori.I remounted, and experienced the odd sensation of riding quiet roads towards Stockwell. The vast expanse of tarmac, normally hidden underneath motor vehicles looked like an arid desert of land stolen from the public, and I felt guilty using it.And then the traffic started building up again - a little bit coming in from Bedford Road, a bit from Stockwell Road, but most having made its way round the diversion (the articulated truck having presumably been cleared) and getting back on course.Yes, they were late, and I could understand a little urgency, but they were driving like maniacs, cutting in on cyclists, running red lights, swerving from lane to lane, rolling into ASLs and revving aggressively at lights.I started getting annoyed. Hadn't they just seen the aftermath of that crash, and the attempts to save a seriously injured driver? What were they thinking? And slowly it dawned on me.I'd seen it. My fellow cyclists had seen it. The pedestrians and the shopworkers had seen it. We all knew what had happened, and what was still going on.But the car drivers hadn't. Thye'd only seen the vehicle in front as they slowly crawled from Clapham Common down into the High Street. They'd seen the Police diverting them through narrow back streets, filled with parked cars, where they'd had to negotiate their way through against the massive flow of traffic with frustrated drivers coming the other way. And, even as they emerged onto the road, they were massively late on their trip to work, and 'had to' drive fast so as not to get into bother with the boss.They didn't see anything human. And that's why nothing touched them. And that's why the most important part of any report of a traffic incident is the bit where it says 'Long delays for drivers were caused when...'I start to understand how a motorist, shielded almost completely from the possible consequences of their actions, can become completely disconnected. And that is when they are at their most dangerous.
