Was it the phone that killed a 3-year-old child?

I can’t take the story off my mind, for it is too painful.

A young builder and the father of a 3-year-old bold, he rarely found time to stay home and was traveling for work most times, but on his kid’s birthday, which he would never miss, he was there. He brought INR 36K worth of car for his son to ride on. He even promised to stay home a little longer this month. The new year was going to be exciting for the whole family, except they did not know what the future held for them.

He took his 3-year-old son, whom he loved most, to the market so they could spend some more time together. In the market, they had a good time, and then he asked the little kid to wait for him while he got the car from the parking. At that moment, things changed. At the parking, while he was reversing his car, he suddenly got a call from his wife. He picked it up, thinking it could be urgent; perhaps she missed telling him something to buy.

While talking on the call, he also reversed his car, not realizing that his excited kid wanted to come to his dad. His car bumped into something, the man realized, and he stopped his car to look. He got down from the car and came to the back side of the car. His little boy was lying there, crushed under the tyre of his own car, a heavy sedan, with blood sputtering all over; his eyes were wide open, for he was already dead. The man, still holding the phone in his hand, finally dropped the device, and with it, he, too, dropped to his knees. His hands started shaking, and his head felt like it would blow up. He had killed his own child.

Pune: The City where rules are broken every day

Every day as I drive around Pune, I see bike riders talking on mobiles while riding. A young guy adjusts his mobile between his shoulder and head to keep talking. Another guy frees his left hand to keep on the phone while driving. A delivery boy is looking down at his phone while still riding his bike slowly. Inside the car, talking on the phone is much more common. They hold the mobile in their hand to talk, no hands-free, no wife, no loudspeaker, just hold the phone in one hand and talk. It is restricted to be on a call while riding or driving. Who pays heed to the warnings?

The man who accidentally killed his own child could have avoided the call. What if he had stopped the car from going reverse while talking? What if he was not on the call when reversing? Perhaps he could not see the small boy from the window, but he could have heard his scared voice when the car was moving towards the boy. And maybe he did it out of his habit. Perhaps he had earlier had close calls with others when his car merely missed a collision, but he never learned a lesson. And when we don’t listen to the lessons from life, God gives us punishment. He got his final punishment, a punishment worse than death, the final punishment for the biggest mistake of his life.

My Close Call…

I, too, had a close call once while driving the car. I was not on a call, but I was just trying to look at Google Maps while driving on a highway. I had asked my kid, who was sitting with me, to look at the map as I was not hearing the AI voice. Still, he struggled, so I took the mobile from him and in that tiny moment, my car suddenly lost balance, only briefly, and as there was no other vehicle on the road, I could bring it back to normal within seconds. But it takes only a few seconds for accidents to happen.

In an audiobook by Brian, I once heard – You can get away breaking laws made by man but never the laws made by God. If you jump from a building, no matter what the situation is and who you are, gravity will take you down. The man-made law says that you should not use your mobiles while riding or driving. We don’t listen. God’s law says that the mind can only focus on one task fully at a time, so if you are trying to do two tasks – talking on a call and managing your bike on the road, there is a chance that you will fail in one of the tasks. Either your phone will slip, or your bike will.

Most times, we can get away with it, and nothing bad happens. I was once crossing the road and was standing at the divider on a corner, holding my kid’s hand. Suddenly a biker came and nearly bumped into us. We jumped and moved to the side, and he applied brakes. I looked at his face. He was holding a phone between his ears and shoulders. I felt a pang of anger because of his stupid addiction to the phone; he could have sent us to a hospital or, worse, could have killed us. It was a close call and a lesson for him, one that he did not pay heed to. And many of us don’t. Bike riders in Pune don’t.

It leaves a lesson…

What happened with the poor father must not happen to anyone, but his story does leave lessons, not just for him but for all of us. And the lesson is that we must think about the consequences of our actions before acting. You won’t become a hero if you can talk while riding. A few minutes of delay caused by you stopping on a side to take an important call will not stop your life. You can always tell the caller that you are driving and cannot talk. No one will force you to keep talking while driving. If you are in a car, you can be safer with a mobile holder but avoid using hands or hands-free.

The logic is so simple that without anyone telling you, you already know what to do and what not to do. In the beginning years of our school life, we learn about safety. I can see lessons in my kid’s book that say –

·????????Do not cross the road when vehicles are coming

·????????Do not drive when the signal is red

·????????Do not use mobiles when driving

Kids know these lessons, but grown-ups have forgotten them. You need to know the basics of how to keep human life safe, not just yours but even others. A few months back, at the corner of our building, a bad accident happened when a speeding bike collided with a Scooty. The biker had not slowed down his vehicle even while taking a turn. Does he need to be taught that at a turn, another vehicle could be taking a turn, and he could smash into it, so he must slow down?

Your habit can take or save a life.

Once, I was going to Iskon temple with my mother and kid, sitting at the back. I have a habit of stopping my car before I take a U-Turn, so I stopped at a divider, gave a right signal, and moved my wheel to the right. My car had hardly turned when a speeding bike came from nowhere and smashed into my car, and went straight ahead, overtaking me. Because of the high speed and the side hit, the biker lost his balance and fell. He quickly got up as he was not too badly hurt. He had a friend, older than him, sitting behind him who came to me and started screaming.

I looked at the rider, who was not saying anything. He looked very young, perhaps 16 or 17 years old. After that, we had a half an hour-long fight. While I tried talking to the guy normally, he was in a full mood to fight. Another guy on the road intervened and asked him to let me park the car on the side and then he could continue to fight. I took the opportunity and turned the car. I did not stop but left the place. The pillion rider was annoyed, and he threw a big stone at my car. Of course, it would not hurt us for our cars have strong, tempered glasses. Even a bullet might not really break the whole glass.

Why do you need speed?

The point remains – Why did the biker have to drive so fast when I was taking the turn? Why was it so important for him to take over my car? Could he not stay on the left side of the road where no one takes a turn? The collision could have been easily avoided. They were fortunate to hit a car that was moving at less than 10 km per hour. Imagine if I had taken a speedy turn as most guys do with their bikes. They would not be fighting with me but floating in the air. That happened to me on the day of my 1st year engineering results.

I was standing on a footpath talking to my friend, and a biker with two more friends accompanying him suddenly lost his balance at the turn and came on the footpath. Because of the high speed, the bike hit me bad, and my body flew straight into the air. I hit a huge tree and fell, unconscious immediately. Fortunately, I only had my ear bone broken and had a few blood clots formed in my brain that kept me from remembering things.

The impact had wiped out 6 hours of my memory, and like a typical Indian movie, I opened my eyes on the hospital bed and asked my mother, “Where am I?” My filmy mom replied, “Do you remember who you are?”. The boy who had hit me was from my college only and was drunk. He, too, broke the man-made rule –‘do not ride the bike after drinking’ but he could not get away with nature’s law that says, ‘Alcohol diminishes your capacity to think clearly’.

The consequences affect all those around you.

In another incident of my life, one my family can never forget, a speeding biker came from the opposite side of the one-way street, breaking another man-made rule. He could not escape the law of nature, and he hit the Scooty that my sister was riding at 30 kmph. As my 70-year-old mom was sitting at the back, she was riding slowly and could not avoid the impact. While my sister somehow managed to save herself from a bigger impact, her jaw was crushed on the road and was slightly displaced. My mom, on the other side, was not so lucky.

My mom fell from the Scooty and rolled over the bare surface full of rocks. It was not the impact of the bike but this rolling that caused the worst damage. She broke multiple bones; one leg and a hand were completely displaced. The biker also fell and was hurt enough to be taken to the hospital, but he was lucky to have a muscular body, unlike his mother, who had a weak old body. My family was in Gandhinagar then, and I was in Mumbai. I immediately flew to Ahmedabad and came down within a few hours.

My mom and sister had to be operated on immediately. After the operation, my mother had to stay in bed for 3 months. She could not even turn because of the excruciating pain in her leg. She could not even go to the washroom. There were many complications, and at one point, her hurt hand stopped working, and the doctor said that she might never be able to use her hand. But thanks to her strong willpower, she recovered and now walks and works normally. But that incident did change her life for now; she is living with two rods in her body that do not give her confidence to walk on a road again or sit on a two-wheeler, so she only sits in my car or takes a cab or auto.

You need to ask yourself WHY

One mistake, a silly one that doesn’t look big, has the power to destroy not one but many lives. And so, it does not, rules are made, but we think that we are so smart that we can get away with breaking the rules and no one can touch us, except the day when our God decides to teach us a lesson and sometimes, these lessons don’t just crush you but also crushes people around you. Then, why do you have to act so smart? Why do you have to break the rules that are made for your own safety?

Why can’t you wear a helmet when riding a bike?

Why can’t you pull up your vehicle if there is an important call?

Why can’t you tell your family or friend that you cannot talk while driving?

Why can’t you decide not to drive or not drive simultaneously?

Why can’t you just slow down your vehicle at a turn?

Why can’t you stay in the right lane all the time?

Why can’t you wait for the signal to go green before moving your vehicle?

As I had missed a few more accounts of my life, I would like to add one more here – On a signal, I was hit by a bike from the back just because the biker wanted to be the first to leave as the signal got green. Fortunately, I could balance my Scooty and not fall, but I was hurt. My Scooty was pushed ahead, and it went straight to the police chowki, and landed in the parking lot of the police station. This time, the boy was saved from God’s law but could not get away with the man-made law. He not only had to pay the fine to the police but take me to the hospital for treatment.

Now, ask yourself, was it the phone that killed a 3-old child? Or just a stupid mistake...

Next time you pick up your mobile while driving or riding, think twice. Think of this story that destroyed a whole family. The man who loved the little boy got the worst punishment of his life. You don’t want that to happen to you, do you?

PLEASE DRIVE SAFE!

FOLLOW THE RULES, ESPECIALLY WHEN THEY ARE MADE FOR YOUR SAFETY!