When I was at school we used to get a visit from PC Barker each term. He would stress the need for road safety by regaling horror stories of what would happen to us if we got knocked down. I first heard him speak when I was 5 years old but he pulled no punches and made no allowances for our tender age. His favourite story was about a boy who ran across the road into the side of a car. The handle (which used to stick out in those days) caught his stomach and ripped it open leaving him bleeding to death with his guts spread over the road. He also told us about a girl who rode her bike across the road rather than getting off it to walk across sensibly. She went under the wheels of a bus which squashed her head spreading her brains across the road. He had many such stories which, as you've no doubt guessed, always ended with death and body parts spread across the road. It sounds horrific but he was a very well thought of character in this area and people of my age remember him with affection.
The memory of him came back to me today when we were out cycling. We came to what is usually a busy but is now empty road but, even though there was no traffic and DH laughed, I stopped, checked for traffic then walked (not ran) across stopping on the middle island to repeat for the second part.
Good old PC Barker. I wonder if he ever thought that the lessons he taught would still be affecting behaviour 55 years later 
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