Great Uncle Fred? I have been thinking. Life is brilliant but then you die. If someone is really old when they die, that’s OK. Also, people get ill and that’s tough. But it is annoying, isn’t it, when people die and it’s really really stupid like Uncle Bruce who nearly died when he fell off the scaffolding. What is the stupidest waste of life, do you think? (Jack, Autumn 2008)

Yes, it is annoying, fearfully annoying. All unnecessary loss of life demonstrates some kind of stupidity, but some deaths are stupider than others. The fact that someone died of starvation, yesterday, in a Third World country, is wretched for all of us (as no one can be truly happy until all have the chance to be truly happy), but the stupidity that that death illustrates is the stupidity of a system, or of various systems, or of our race as a whole. Death-by-starvation has too many and too complex causes to be considered primarily an expression of stupidity. The same goes for death by war. Likewise, suicide, which is obviously unacceptable and might seem plain stupid, is presumably often the result of a careful consideration of the facts. Even to start contemplating such an action might be proof of a deranged mind but the ultimate decision, perhaps, is thought-through and, in its way, sensible. ‘How can I escape this utter misery? This is how.’ No, the way to die which every time demonstrates stupidity, and very little else, is by car crash. Even if you are driving sedately and something suddenly goes wrong and you veer and crash, the stupidity of you or your mechanic is responsible. The only way to die in a car and stupidity not be involved is if some natural catastrophe has occurred. A tree might fall on you, but if the winds were high you were stupid not to have stayed at home. A deer might leap over a hedge onto your windscreen. These things do happen. But 3,508 people did not die on Britain’s roads in 2003 because of natural catastrophes. Almost every single one of these 2,627 males and 881 females perished because someone had been very, very stupid. (Jack, please do not say anything of this sort to anyone whose relative has been involved in a car crash. OK?) Dangerous, risky manoeuvres, driving while intoxicated or over-tired, driving while distracted, driving an unsafe car, not wearing a seat-belt - these are the main reasons why people die. The police highlight certain examples of driver-stupidity, like speed or drink, but they do not emphasise stupidity itself. It is possible to smash the speed limit and still be driving sensibly. It is possible to cause a fatal car-crash while abiding by all the rules. It is not possible to cause a fatal car crash without being stupid. The media contributes. The only time a car crash makes the news is if it’s a mega horror pile-up on the motorway. But such an event is actually comparitively rare. Of those deaths in 2003 - and please remember the individuals here subsumed in statistics - 217 occurred on Britain’s motorways, 1,378 on urban roads and well over half, 1,913, on rural roads. Stuff makes the news because it’s uncommon. In the meantime, more than ten people a day are dying from this stupidity. Of course, the most famous person in recent years to die like this was Diana, Princess of Wales, a death caused, it is probably fair to say, by the over-heated sense of loyalty of her intoxicated driver removing her from the threat of press intrusion at a ridiculous speed in a built-up area and by her failure to wear a seat-belt. The initial attempt to blame the photographers who, we were told, were buzzing round the car like Apache warriors round a covered wagon - when they weren’t even on the scene - again demonstrates the reluctance to accept that car crashes are merely stupid. Stupid stupid stupid. Her death, incidentally, precipitated another record, as you seem to be interested in records - the suddennest loss of value of any commodity in history (perhaps), the photographs of the crash. Had she lived, these would have been worth thousands and thousands and thousands of pounds. A few photographers, agency chiefs and picture editors were set to live well for the rest of their lives on the proceeds of those 80 or so snaps. And then she died. And the pictures were of course unusable. And effectively worthless. From one moment to the next. A fitting farewell.

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