Black Box Friday
07/01/2020
Every Friday in the UK 90 people are killed or injured in road accidents taking place between 4pm and 6pm. That’s twice the paltry 45 people killed or injured between 4pm and 6pm on Mondays. Friday night drive time is the deadliest time of the week. And Friday mornings aren’t much better. The moral of the story maybe being: five-day weeks do not suit drivers.
But, wait, you’re probably thinking, did you just make up those stats? How dare you! Bankstone News is a bona fide upstanding news organ. Would we just make things up?! We know about the Friday evening peak death period because some highly reputable PR types have scooped up a slew of black box data accessible to some outfit called IBS Telematics Solutions and done some extrapolation.
Plus they’ve nicked that figure about about 4-6 RTAs from the Department for Transportmentation. According to IBS’ BB data, the very most dangerous time is precisely 4pm on Fridays. So it’s those nipping off early you should shun above all others. Unless, of course, it’s not commuters after all but yummy mummies frazzled from a week of solo-childcare and/or a weekly lunch date with the girls.
Far be it from Bankstone News, however, to indulge any protracted bout of casual sexism. Ours simply to rework someone else’s press release, to stretch it out to three or four paragraphs and then to sign off with some apparently pithy but ultimately meaningless summation like: it only goes to show, really, doesn’t it!
23/12/2019
What a year 2019 was! We had Brexit, and Brexit, and Brexit, and who knows what else besides. We won’t see another year like that in a hurry!
No, indeedy! 2020’s sure to be a whole different kettle of fish. Apart from anything, we won’t have Brexit anymore – because that’ll be done by the end of January, with the very word officially retired from that date onwards. So we’ll just have to talk about something else.
But before we rush ahead and look at what the remainder of the coming twelvemonth has in store. Let’s take one last fond look back at some of the things that happened in 2019 that weren’t Brexit.
For one thing, there was Munching Monkeys, an event in which, please be assured, no monkeys were munched, nibbled or otherwise eaten (not even their brains), but in which a multitude of miniature motorcycles were ridden round Yorkshire for lifesaving charity Yorkshire Air Ambulance (YAA).
Also there was the latest annual instalment of the epic clash of karts that is Insurance Endurance 2019. What a day that was! Who could forget a day like that! And, even if they had, could they not easily refresh their memories by reading all about it all over again right here!
And that wasn’t all! There was also the heartcockle-warming sight of Bankstone top dog Dickie Tyzer raising aloft a trophy recognising excellence in fundraising, awarded by the very same YAA alluded to above.
To clinch this much-prized gonglet, Tyzer not only rode endless miles up hill and down dale on a very small motorcycle, but also endured endless hours of corporate golf, Yellow Yorkshireness and horse-racing hospitality to boot. Worthy winning at its unapologetic best!
How could 2020 follow a year like that? Surely only by promising such delights as the return of the insurance industry’s premier corporate karting event. Insurance Endurance 2020 takes place at the locally renowned PFI Racetrack on Thursday 18th June. And, to be honest, you’d better book now if you don’t want to risk missing out.
If that’s not enough to convince you that 2020 will be one hell of a year. There’s also the prospect of MORE monkeybike madness when [yet to be named, but the word monkey will be in there somewhere, as may very well be the word pub, or some synonym thereof] returns to the desolate wilds of supposedly scenic Jorviksområde on the 4th and 5th July. Again if you’d like to be involved, applying early is highly recommended. Your best bet on this one is to contact expedition leader Commander Dick ‘Dickie’ Tyzer directly by email.
So another great year is ‘getting underway’, as they say on the BBC.. In the meantime here’s hoping you’ve had the very merriest of Christmases and New Yearses, with much love from all of our extensive team here at Bankstone News!
