SOMETIMES we miss the obvious... As we marked the tenth anniversary this week of the shooting at Dunblane - where Thomas Hamilton just walked into a primary school and killed a teacher and 16 of her young pupils - there has been much discussion of increased safety in schools.

In the last ten years, millions of pounds have been spent on improving security - better locks, gates, fences, cameras, to prevent mad gunmen getting into a school.

All well and good. Of course, we have to think of security. Yet, mad gunmen are, thank goodness, few and far between.

Car accidents are not.

Every year, around 5,000 children are killed or seriously injured on our roads. That's 50,000 since the Dunblane shooting - the equivalent of nearly three thousand Dunblanes.

One of the most effective ways of keeping children safe in cars is by ensuring they are sitting in a properly fitted child seat. Such restraint makes a terrific difference in whether a child survives a car crash - just ask the people in A&E.

But every day, carefully supervised children come out of their high security, locked, guarded, fenced-in schools and get straight into their parents' cars, where they bounce around, with no seat belt, no restraint, quite free to go head first through the windscreen.

It's even worse on snowy mornings. Yesterday, when I walked up to get the papers, there were parents slithering out on icy roads, children rolling round the back seat and in a few cases, the mothers (sorry, but they were the mothers) hadn't even waited until the windscreen had de-frosted, but were peering out at the snow through a tiny smeary blur of vision, just about the same size as their child's head. Madness.

We worry about shootings, which most probably will never happen. Maybe we should spend more energy and effort worrying about car accidents, which almost certainly will.

MALE drivers take twice as long as women to admit they are lost and ask directions, says new research for the RAC.

It has, apparently, got slightly better since the boom in satellite navigation. But that, too, has its pitfalls.

A neighbour's car was off the road recently because a driver behind her was so busy looking at the little sat nav screen that he drove straight into the back of her car in front.

Ooops. Sometimes it's easier to stop and ask directions.

WELL that's an idea that will backfire. A father was so fed up of the mess in his student daughter's bedroom that he put a photo of it on the Internet to embarrass her.

True, by grown-up standards the room looks pretty chaotic - clothes, papers and make-up scattered everywhere. But you can actually see bits of the floor. Big chunks of the carpet have nothing on it.

By student standards, that counts as pretty near immaculate.

THIS weekend sees Foodiefest, celebrating Tastes of the Tees. Lots of events in various restaurants from Teesside to Teesdale.

On Friday morning in the Indoor Market in Darlington from 11am onwards there will be a soup making competition with teams from Darlington College of Technology but with the chance for shoppers to taste the soup and judge which is best. Meanwhile, there will be a Ready Steady Cook event at Darlington Farmers' Market. Chefs and helpers will have £10 to buy food from the market and whip up something quick and delicious.

Middlesbrough opera singer Suzannah Clarke will be helping Adam Robson, recently qualified from Darlington College and I'll be helping Darren Parkhill, chef from the Atlantic Bar and Grill in Darlington.

We'll be starting at about 11.45am and should have a main course and pudding ready to serve by 12.30 - depending on how much I get in Darren's way.

See you there.

www.thisisthenortheast.co.uk/ news/griffiths.html

Published: ??/??/2004