A Road Accident.docx

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A Road Accident

Road accidents are reported in newspaper and on television every day. There are

more frequently caused by reckless drivers rather than faulty vehicles. Last Saturday, while

I was travelling from Ipoh, I witnessed a serious accident. The scene of the accidents was

vivid in my mind.

motorcyclist was following behind was ta!i very closely. "e was so impatient that

he was trying to overtake my ta!i even near a sharp bend. t that critical moment, there

was an oncoming car. The ta!i driver swerved to the roadside and I got a terrible #olt. It was

too late for the motorcyclist to avoid the car. "is motorcycle ran against the bumper of the

car and smashed its windscreen. The motorcyclist somersaulted over the car and was found

lying in a pool of blood. It was a scene to chill the flesh$ The car driver, who was cut by the

flying glass, was in a state of shock. ll that happened in split second and fear overwhelmed

us.

The ta!i driver stopped his ta!i and I quickly ran to the nearest to the nearesttelephone booth to inform the police and the hospital. %rom a distance I could see some

people trying to help the in#ured motorcyclist and the car driver. They carried them into one

of the onlooker&s car and sent them to the hospital for treatment. 'eanwhile the ta!i driver

tried to control and directs the traffic. Soon the police arrived and they promptly took some

measurements and evidence. fter that they moved the damaged car and the motorcycle to

the roadside to ease the traffic congestion. They also took down the evidence provided by

witnesses and onlookers. Some sweepers were clearing the debris and the blood stains on

the road.

(hen the ta!i finally continued the #ourney, I silently thanked )od for my narrow

escape. I learned a good lesson that impatience and recklessness would bring harm and

danger. I was happy to see that 'alaysians are public*spirited and they render help to

others readily. Since then I remember and follow the saying +more haste less speed& and

+prevention is better than cure&. I believe good road manners and roads safety campaigns

can help to reduce the number of road accidents which cause in#uries, loss and lives and

properties.

- words

The road in front of my school is a narrow one. It is also very busy. Every afternoon



when school is dismissed the road becomes almost impassable as children, bicycles, cars and

buses jostle and struggle to use it. Sometimes a policeman is there to help things out, but

generally chaos reigns and we have to be careful not to get involved in an accident.

A few accidents had already occurred. I was a witness to one.

If happened just after school. As usual the road was an utter mad house. Children were running

across the road to get to their cars and buses. Cars and buses honed angrily at them.

!ust then I saw a young boy mae a dash across the road. There was a loud blare of horn, a

s"ueal of braes and I saw a car noc into the boy. #e fell as though his feet were swept fromunder him.

$ortunately the car was not moving very fast and the driver managed to stop the car before a

wheel could run over the fallen boy.

All traffic stopped. I ran over to the boy and saw blood on the road. #e was bleeding from a cuton his head. A man came and e%amined the boy. Then he lifted the boy and carried him to a car.

They sped off, presumably to the hospital.

&any people surrounded the driver who looed dazed and bewildered. A policeman came to

calm things down.

As there was nothing I could do, I turned and waled down the road carefully. It was terrible towitness an accident. I certainly would not lie to be involved in one.



Something happened at nine years old that changed the outlook on my

life forever. My family and I were going on a camping trip. As we were

traveling in our car, we saw an accident happen in front of us. My father

slammed on the breaks and veered to the left and went into the median

strip of the highway. He then put the car into park and opened the car doorand ran toward the accident leaving the car door open. Me being the age I

was I took that to mean that it was ok to get out of the car and see what

was happening. The first vehicle I came to had a women and a child both

crying and scared. They were being helped out of the damaged car by two

men and three ladies one being my mother!. I stopped and watched for a

brief moment and walked on. The ne"t vehicle I came to was a big semi#

truck and it$s load was on its side and the front of it was tipping also. I

wondered where the man was that was driving the large truck, because hewas nowhere around the truck. Then out of the corner of my eye I saw a

man sitting on the ground facing another vehicle rocking back and forth and

screaming %&H M' (&) I did not mean to,* %&H M' (&), I did not mean

to* over and over again. As I looked over at the upside down +ord pickup

truck there was my father holding a young boy who had a lot of blood on

him and he was screaming %I want my )addy* I walked around to the other

side of the pickup and smelled gasoline and oil. I looked at the road and it

was covered with gas, oil, and blood. I followed the stream of blood with my

eyes and found where it came from. There was a man hanging by his

knees, but his knees did not look -uite right. They were backwards his legs

had been caught under the dashboard and broken. His arm had been

ripped off by being trapped under the roof of the truck. His neck was turned

in a strange way and blood and water ran from his mouth, nose, and ears



he sight of ambulances and police'cars racing to the scene of a road accident in the

city or on the busy highway is so commonplace in modern countries that few headsturn even in idle curiosity. This is part of the tragedy of road accidents. They occur so

often that they are taen for granted, and the general public has become conditioned to

them. A murder, a fire or a riot is still front page news, but a serious motor accident

resulting in ghastly injury and often loss of life hardly rates a small bac'page

paragraph e%cept o the relatives of those involved, whose lies may be shattered and

reduced to pitiful sadness, often poverty, by a few seconds of rending metal and

shattering glass. (o solution of the problem can help these individuals. There is

indeed no cure, so there must be prevention, an the alarming increase in accidents

shown by statistics maes the "uestion of cure an immediate one. In most countries,

the accident rate goes up roughly in proportion to the increase in the number ofvehicles on the road, and there is every sign that in most modern countries, the

numbers of both are steadily increasing.

Such is the problem, but when we always the cause of accidents, we find there are

many, and that the problem is comple% indeed.

The first point to reali)e is that not all accidents are caused by the driver* "uite often

the pedestrian is to blame. The +jay+ waler who is liable to a heavy fine in the SA,

can be a menace* so can the child or teenager playing -last across- or simply playing

about with a ball on the road* so can the old person whose ability to see, hear andwal properly may be defective. Sometimes, the roads themselves present ha)ards* the

sharp bend with a reverse camber can easily send a vehicle off the road* sudden rain,

ice patches, snow and fog in cold countries, cause innumerable accidents every winter.

and the narrowness of many roads in country areas, and their poor surface and blind

corners, greatly increase ha)ards of the driver. A proportion of accidents can, of

course, be blamed on the vehicle and therefore on the driver, though nobody can rule

out a front'wheel blow'out of speed. ehicle defects, however, results from careless

maintenance and the refusal to pay for necessary repairs. $aulty tyres, steering,

lighting and braes cause many accidents. /adly focused or undipped headlamps can

blind oncoming traffic. /ut, it must be admitted that most accidents result from afailure of the driver himself. 0rin increased foolhardiness and slows reactions, and in

most countries, the penalties for driving under the influence of li"uor are very

stringent indeed. /ut, many accidents results from a simple error of judgment due to

ine%perience or lac of -road sense- '' and it is unfortunate that so many people who

barely -scrape* through their driving test gain their e%perience at the e%pense of other

people. 1ther relevant causes are inconsiderate driving, a momentary slacening of



attention due to fatigue, an insect in he vehicle, or a family row, irritation hurry,

perhaps and attac of illness at the wheel, or simply the desire to -show off- to a girl

friend.

!ust as there is no single cause of road accidents, so there can be no single solution,

although most countries are trying out both short and long term ideas. 2ooing ahead,the sane policy is to teach road manners, both to drivers and pedestrians alie.

/ritain is at present trying -horrific- propaganda both on television and in posters ''

depicting realistically what happens when an accidents occurs.

driving tests are becoming more e%acting, and licenses withdrawn for long periods

following serious offences. #eavy fines and imprisonment await the serious offender.

It may well become necessary to institute periodic tests for all drivers '' if this

happened, one suspects, many people would be put straight off the road. Insurance

companies already put up their premiums after serious accidents and may refuse toreinsure -bad riss,- after which ti is unliely that any other company will tae them

on. 0runen driving ' especially in /ritain '' is severely punished nowadays*

-breathalysers- may become legal evidence after the government has laid down the

ma%imum "uantity of li"uor a person who is driving may consume in a given period.

3oads, of course, must be widened, improved, and moderni)ed as fast as possible ''

and preferably made two ways. it is rather a grievance among motorists that little of

the revenue they pay in road'ta%, is actually spent on road'improvement.

ehicles should be subjected to a five'year chec, at least, and old commercialvehicles to spot'checs. This would put many of them of the road.

A Road Accident.docx

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