Windscream

Things are always bouncing off the car windscreen.

The summer months are a terrible period for all manner of small flying insects who meet a swift and decisive fate on the smooth glass.

I remember a longstanding joke which went goes along the lines of "what is the last thing that goes through the mind of a fly when it hits a windscreen?- its bum!.

Late summer is the favourite time for the Local Authorities to undertake that most inefficient and messy of processes of re-surfacing. There is nothing sophisticated about putting down a gloopy substance, throwing on lots of loose chippings and then encouraging strangers in their vehicles to pass over and over until the conglomerated substance is tightly compressed into a passable carriageway. It can be a very dusty and noisy time and even at retarded speeds there is always that worrying sound of small stones shot blasting the underside of the car and wheel arches.

Sticky tarmac residues make individual chippings messy they find their way onto the soles of shoes and from there into homes and workplaces. A few weeks after peak surfacing when everything has settled down the motorist is once again lulled into that feeling of being untouchable behind the windscreen.

A lot of faith is placed in a few millimetres of multi-layered toughened glass. It is a cosy place to be when facing driving rain, a gale force wind or that mesmerising sweep of powdery snow as it is tunneled into your vision in the glare of bright beam headlights. My trust in the invincibility of my own windscreen was shattered when it.....well, shattered just yesterday.

Oncoming traffic, I suspect an unmarked white van, threw up a small projectile which cannoned into the lower right hand edge of the windscreen leaving a round, bullet hole type fracture. Within a micro-second the shock-waves spread out along a fault line directly into my line of sight. In the morning sunlight the depth of the crack caught the light just like the best Swarovski crystal in the window of the jewellers in the High Street.

I tentatively swept my hand over the inside face of the windscreen. It remained smooth and flawless which gave me some, although little comfort. Opening the window I pushed my fingers into the jagged hole.It was a fascinating feeling, a bit like that constant urge to touch a blister or a spot on your face. Under slight pressure I could see the surrounding glass flex and give. This was a bit of a cause for concern as I could imagine that a dip in the road or a speed bump could have the same effect but with more violence and resonance.

I had read somewhere that if the whole windscreen followed its design brief of breaking into a billion pieces rather than form jagged spears by which to sever the limbs and arteries of the driver, it was necessary to thrust something through to form a hole by which to have a view of the road ahead and hopefully steer the car to a safe rest. Normally my car is full of suitable implements. Odd shoes, wooden sticks, books, folders, plastic bottles and empty McDonalds coffee cups.

Strangely the car was devoid of anything suitable if you discounted an apple, CD boxes and a mobile phone. I decided to risk carrying on the journey so as to get nearer to the industrial estate near my own office where there was a depot of the National Windscreen franchise. I had a well planned morning of appointments and could not really cancel them.

This meant a nervy couple of hours of motoring expecting any second a sickening sound as the precursor to a full scale failure. Up and down a few streets, fill up with petrol, buy a sandwich, visit the supermarket to get the shopping for tea, park up and drink a McDonalds coffee, make a few phone calls and so on in my normal working day. It was with some relief that I pulled into the car park of the repair depot.

The technician voted the damage amongst the most severe he had seen for some time. I of course took a few photographs and rang a few people. It had been a frightening and sobering experience and one I would not hope to have again for another 30 years of motoring.