AFTER recently reading about three youngsters being injured in traffic accidents in one evening, I felt compelled to try to explain to any young people reading this about the dangers that roads can pose.

When I was but a lad of ten, I was acting over-boisterously with some friends and ran straight past a blind corner. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time, as a car mowed me down.

It was just a week before the summer holidays were due to start, but I had a fractured femur and was in traction for four months and in a cast for two more months followed by intense physiotherapy to help me walk again.

Needless to say, it was the worst summer of my young life.

And the problems didn’t stop there. Now a young man of 24, I get crippling pains in my injured leg at the first hint of winter and surely as I get older the pain will only get worse.

I just want all the kids out there getting ready to enjoy the upcoming summer holidays to heed traffic and never forget to stop, look, and listen. Otherwise, they might lose their whole summer – or even their life.

Enjoy yourselves, but be careful.

Michael Blighe, Bishop Auckland, Co Durham.