LABOUR’S Anna Coda told the Hereford Times earlier this month that car accidents are largely bad luck – five days later she was in one herself.

The candidate standing for Hereford and South Herefordshire was travelling from Peterchurch when she was in a head-on collision.

It meant she missed the election hustings at Hereford Sixth Form College as she went to the A&E department at Hereford County Hospital.

Mrs Coda sustained bruising but is now recovering well and is hoping to resume normal canvassing activities soon.

She said: “It has been a bit of a hiatus. I haven’t been able to do the canvassing I hoped to do. It has inconvenienced my campaign.”

On the day of the collision she did attend a hustings in the evening, but she has also had to arrange transport as her car was written off.

It was in last week’s election page on the subject of health that Mrs Coda wrote: “Polls show a majority willing to pay more tax to save the NHS and ultimately we may have to do this.

“For most of us illness, car accidents and frailty in old age are largely bad luck or inevitable.”

Mrs Coda was also in a serious collision in 2006, when she spent a week in intensive care and 12 weeks in hospital.