Stuck in traffic? It’s a tragedy.

I try to avoid having to drive south from work on Fridays. The Friday before a Bank Holiday weekend, well, that's a definite no go. I work in Bristol and live in a coastal town that has a junction with the M5. It's a pretty reliable motorway, but look on a map and you can see that it points at the south west - at Devon and Cornwall. It's pretty hard to get away to those holiday spots without using the M5 south of Bristol. Setting out on the commute amongst the holiday traffic is a fatal error.

Four days ago, the Friday before the August Bank Holiday, the reports came in throughout the afternoon of traffic building up, junctions closed, police on the scene 20 mile tail backs. I was listening on the radio whilst working from home thinking 'thank heavens that's not me'.

There were two things that tolled loudly in the reports, though - firstly it was the northbound carriageway that was broken; secondly the cause given was an 'on-going police incident'. Not an accident, an incident. In our 21st century psyche that subtle change pricks the conscience a little more - terrorism is not an accident.

The congestion on the M5 was not an act of fanaticism, though.

A man had been found on the Avonmouth bridge around lunchtime and there were concerns for his safety. Police closed the roads whilst they dealt with it. Seven hours later the man died after falling from the bridge.

The reports of the incident are sketchy. I know there were people trapped for hours in their cars. I know there was concern about people, especially the elderly and pregnant, not having access to loos or water. I know there were fears for pets stuck in cars and horse boxes. I heard the usual indignation about the lack of investment in our roads and disgruntled souls who felt that at least one lane should have been opened to prevent gridlock.

I didn't hear anything about the man who died beyond: man in his fifties from the Bristol area.

Of course I don't want to rubberneck at the human tragedy, but surely there is something awry here. Yes, for the thousands in their cars the impact was one concerning traffic; but for the one person at the centre, this was life and death.

Such events - or the reaction to them - are prone to bring out the worst in me, I know. When I worked in the corporate world in London the regular delays on the Northern Line caused by the clinically ambiguous "person on the tracks" always unsettled me. Tuts, groans, angrily rustled newspapers all seemed to whisper an unspoken: so inconsiderate to choose a rush hour train for suicide.

In my darkest moments I see in these responses the victory of individualism over community; the extent to which capitalism can brain-wash humans to ignore their fellow man. This preference for sweeping out of sight the distress and needs of 'weaker' beings is, I believe, all too familiar to those who work with the marginalised in society.

Rather than see any collective responsibility for the safety, behaviour or needs of others, it is distasteful in the extreme to me that all too often people are equated with burden and inconvenience. Either that, or people are thinking 'thank heavens that's not me'.