Year's end comes quietly for the 2013/2014 Christmas and New Year's holiday road toll as the nation watches Australia reclaim The Ashes from the Poms. As it happens, the bodies are out for six and that's New South Wales still keeping its head above the bloody waters. But only just in a pool of 27.
While NSW sits at the heap with 6 in fragile hand, it's because Western Australia are with the same, but on count back, the Premier State was more fruitful, needing one less crash to render a body on the tally board. Five crashes to six, you just can't beat that return unless you're driving a minivan or chartered bus. And then you're just unfairly weighing the sack.
Victoria then scoops up the mill and grist, right behind the double-header as each finger on the 5 shows one for each bag. For the little boy down the lane, a new life as an orphan as he runs off with the jerrycan to light another night.
Hitting a boundary and scraping it off the railings, Queensland take out 4 for the holiday period. Being at the top end doesn't get you out from the middle in these cases.
Holding a steady pattern from last year, Tasmania keeps 3 warm by the roadside fires as the flashing lights come up rolling through the still traffic to cart them all away.
Down in the bottom of the well, ACT, the Northern Territory and South Australia all hold a candle, 1 for the road each. It's the same figure if you're writing under an Hieratic alphabet.
We may not be dealing directly against any synoptic-scale events here, but the depression between 23 December 2013 and 3 January 2014 against that last year is enough to recheck the numbers. At least those on the thermometer as 2013 closes out to one of the hottest on record. So far. Sweltering roads makes for sweaty road trips and not as many, as the counts show, want to head to the morgue if they can't enjoy the time in the cooler.
Written on Sunday, 5 January 2014