One Turn Too Fast

Dear Readers...

I am not talking about one turn too fast in the journey of the life where a person is getting married over 100 KM/hr or getting divorced in 200 KM/hr speed. Even not about the turn too fast in the roadmap of the career by accepting the huge offer or resigning from a job on the day itself when just having one great conversation with the manager. But it is about speed on the road, may be empty road, or on the road full of traffic. it just takes one moment of life on the road to change everything. Just one turn too fast and it could just as well be the last.

Almost 80,000 people die in road accidents in India each year or 14 people in an hour.  This means someone has just now lost a life in a road accident, and before I finish my speech, there would be another death on the road. And tonight they will not be present on the dinner table on which their loved are waiting for them.

Still the horror never hits us. The day we hear about a relative or a close friend being killed or injured in a road accident I am sure most of us slow down a bit. I know.  Because I vividly remember the day in 12th class when a friend of my Ramesh was crushed by a bus while riding his bike. In fractions of seconds we lost a great football player, a good musician and a charming friend.  but I can assure you that day I just pushed my scooter a little less hard and so did the rest of us. We were scared of death.

You may wonder why this moral lecture? What has another death got to do with you? I say, everything! Because YOU would probably be driving, today or tomorrow. And when you get behind the wheel you ought to know the mortal danger you are in.

 U know why this happens because when someone says I drove my bike at 100 km/hr.  That’s just a 28 m/sec! try to imagine covering the distance more than the width of the room in a second on foot.  It’s impossible. And yet we seldom think twice before taking one turn too fast using the accelerator while driving.

Maybe some of that arrogance would disappear if you were to see the results of rash driving first-hand. Because no description can fully describe the horror of being there. The sound of metal twisting, the moans of the barely conscious, the horror of the onlookers and pain that is unimaginable. Of course there are people who can boast about walking away unhurt from the incidents. But they were just lucky. Death was just enjoying being irrational.

Let’s imagine an accident. Someone is driving, and suddenly he collides with another vehicle at high speeds and then blood is ripping out of his head like drops of water are falling from a tap. But maybe it was not his fault. Maybe the other driver was rash and drunk. But maybe he could have gone a little slower.

And now suppose that person is you.

After that one moment you wake up to find your leg bent at an impossible angle like the yoga asna. But you are too confused to realize it’s broken. Maybe your lungs are filling up with blood because of broken ribs. You are literally drowning in your own blood and there is nothing you can do. I wonder if anyone would like a similar scenario,' to wake up from an accident only to realize you are dying'. There are injuries for which doctors can do nothing more than just move on to the next patient who could probably be saved. Also in India, where you would sent to a hospital which will probably refuse to accept you for the fear of a police case.

Or you could be like my friend Ramesh who was hit by a truck in the odd hours on a national highway. No one stopped to help Ramesh and he lay there in a ditch, for over two hours, dying just 200 meters from the comfort of his home on a chilly morning of January. It turned out to be a beautiful day. But It was just not so bright for him.

And if you are counting on surviving the accident, don’t forget it could involve anything -from long lonely months of recovery in a hospital, the guilt of having caused the death of innocents or even leading a crippled life.

Friends, drive safe. There are only two self -evident truths which I know of and they are that don’t drive if you are drunk and keep a control over your accelerator. Only a fool can deny these. So drive knowing the risks. Because the problem is not driving but bad driving.

There is a simple reason why I spoke about accidents the way I did. Why I talked about death as if it was just around the corner. Because if you can imagine the pain after a crash or even better see yourself lying unattended on a stretcher still, very still; then maybe you will just be a little easy on the accelerator next time. So friends don’t take one turn too fast. By the way also don’t take one turn too fast in other roadmapof life it may be relationship or may be a career.