What a lucky first week of the Easter holidays we have had here in Leeds. With glorious sunshine, shorts hot weather and not a drop of rain in sight we at RedRite have been taking advantage and getting the garden ready for summer. Removing all the dead flowers from last year, cutting the lawn to a reasonable level once again and planting plenty more flowers to bring colour to the garden come May-August it’s been a fun and productive week.
We love this bit of sunshine we have been granted and are hoping for much more of it to come, my children have gone crazy digging out all the outside toys and inventing new ways (for them anyway) to play with them, including my crazy son who decided it would be fun to sit on his scooter and ride down our little hill to the back door. The paving has never been more colourful thanks to my daughters and their chalks, we have even managed to sneak in two delicious BBQs.
The weather forecast for the next week or so is a little mixed up depending on where you look but we do hope for some more lovely weather so we can plant out the seedlings we currently have growing, we also hope to have a get together with friends and family followed with another BBQ. This lovely weather seems to be having a positive impact on our working motivation as well surprisingly as we have got far on our current projects and are ahead of our current timetable.
What have you and your family/friends got up to in this lovely weather, we would love to hear all about it, we may even create a Top Ten Things to do in The Sun if we get enough responses.
Now to a more serious yet no less personal topic.
The sun also brings out a lot of Bikers, although fun it can also be very dangerous hobby. Bikers make up only 1% of road traffic users however the number of incidents every year involving a Biker is approximately 30 significant incidents a day, 80% of which have occurred due to other parties, including local councils for improper care of the road surfaces. Out of that percentage, 48% of all accidents are caused directly by other road users, more than likely car drivers not double checking when manoeuvring, although this may be higher than reported as another percentage is that of Bikers losing control, which can be associated with having to avoid unobservant car drivers.
The death toll associated with motorbike incidents are thankfully on the drop thanks to campaigns such as Think! and the improvement in protective wear available to Bikers, unfortunately though the amount of serious injuries reported is on the increase, equalling around 19 serious injuries a day. In 2004 those aged 21-25 and 31-35 are the most vulnerable and more than likely to be involved in an incident, an astonishing 38% of these incidents are caused by right of way violations, 11% of the time due to loss of control whilst navigating a bend and 15% of the time due to a filtering accident.
If you are out and about in this lovely weather then please double check for motorbikes in your mirrors, as a relative of someone who has been injured in a motorbike incident receiving a call stating something has happened no matter how insignificant is an unsettling experience, so please do take care.