Blog@GraceJunction

India. A Monday morning in the May of 2008. It’s his first day at duty and the only thing on his mind is: “to make a difference“. He is determined to be unlike the ones before him. He would be clean, uncorrupted and only stand for the law and the rules. He will enforce it and propagate it. He takes up position at one of the main traffic junctions.

He soon realises that culprits are ‘dime a dozen’. They are everywhere. Most riders are without their helmets. Some drivers do not have seat belts on. Others have dark films on it. Still others have no colors prescribed by the law on the lights, bumpers or the back. Still others have heads tilted while riding and many a drivers are juggling while driving - trying to finish the most important telephone call of their life. Many more are standing in the wrong lanes! God only knows how many of them have licenses. (more…)

A grey silver Lancer zoomed out of the darkness down the Judges Bungalow road in Ahmedabad at break neck speed, late in the night, and zoomed into “more darkness”, literally breaking necks (well almost)! The inebriated (apparently) driver lost control of his racing machine, hit a lamp post, flipped over the road divider and then did an acrobatic turn(over) on to the other side of the road.

Yet another fallout of late night racing on empty city roads; something that is becoming a common phenomenon on roads across India.  The driver somehow escaped, but the passenger was trapped and is grievously injured.

What happened after that? Nothing! There is no rule to book any of them. The incident has to be dismissed as a freak accident! (more…)

The TOI today is flooded with the news of a DPS school bus that overturned yesterday on it way to school. Little Akul Rathod, a really cute 9 year old student of standard IV, was killed in this freak accident, and he had no scope of survival because, his head got trapped between the bus and the road divider and his skull got crushed.

It pains me to even write about it, and I cannot even imagine the deep scar this event will cause in the mind of his parents. And this wound will never heal. They will have to nurse it as long as they live.

Ashok Patel, the driver of the ill-fated bus was overspeeding it seems. He jumped a divider and rushed past a truck to beat him to the junction. He overtook from the right when he actually needed to turn to the left! The trucker was not very happy it seems. He gave a slight nudge to our ‘Ayrton Senna’ before he speeded away to his destination, leaving the school bus to a cruel destiny. The bus it seems, turned turtle twice and in the process threw Akul out of the window pane, only to crush him later. (more…)