IT would be too easy to say ITV is hoping for a smash hit with Collision.
So I won’t go down that road.
But it might be worth the while of UK readers to watch this drama serial unfold over the next five nights.
There’s a feature on Collision here plus a photo gallery here.
Most of those working on the production had experiences of road accidents or knew someone who had been in one.
Paul McGann, who plays millionaire property dealer Richard Reeves, told us how he and his brother were almost killed in a crash on holiday in Spain.
“We flew off a bridge in a car I was driving. The car spun in the air and landed on its roof.
“Years before, I was working on a telly production and on the last day we all cleared off and hit the M6.
“And we were half a mile behind what was then the biggest coach pile-up that we’d had.
“It was horrible. We were trapped, we witnessed it.
“All I can say is that the mock-up that we had on Collision is pretty faithful.
“That’s what it was like.”
Writer and creator Anthony Horowitz said: “I’ve always had an interest in the idea that people in cars are in a sense telling a story.
“Every journey is a story from A to B.
“I have had a car smash into me before I wrote Collision.
“It was a police car that was speeding in pursuit of somebody.
“So I have had the personal experience of whiplash injuries and the shock of it.
“And that extraordinary feeling of how it happens so quickly and so slowly at the same time. It’s in slow motion and it’s instant.”
The actual collision happens at the end of episode one.
Setting up the web of stories that follow.
Five vehicles were written off in the crash staged for the drama.
Watch out for the van crossing the central reservation.
Sparing a thought for stunt co-ordinator Derek Lea, who was actually in the driving seat at the time.
*Collision begins on ITV1 at 9pm tonight
Life of Wylie 