The poor Mahindra Bolero pickup driver (in the attached video) who's no more had to load litchis and drive on the Delhi to Chandigarh National Highway at night to earn a paltry salary to feed his dear ones at home. A tyre burst near Karnal in Haryana had forced him to stop to replace the wheels in pitch darkness. The Tata Motors trailer driver carrying long iron bars had to drive at night because he too had a tight schedule to maintain and to earn a salary to feed his dear ones at home. The trailer driver possibly fell asleep and rammed into the Bolero pickup from behind.
The unfortunate incident should serve as an eye opener for those who consider it a heroic act by driving at night although we in Indian Roadie (and associated forums of Indian Roadie) keep harping on 'No Planned Night Driving' especially if it's a pleasure trip. We also keep repeating that making a car roll and steering it may not be very difficult, but the ability to appreciate that remaining 'High On Cognition', viz. expecting the unexpected is most important. Those people who ignore our well meaning advice actually drive not to enjoy Kilometres Of India but to clock social media reactions. Some zamindars even boast of driving at 120 or 140 kmph all through the night supposedly because the empty roads are all theirs.
Visualize yourself with your dear ones in your own car (in place of the pickup) out on a pleasure road trip but unfortunately stranded by the roadside with a punctured tyre or some other unforeseen breakdown. Imagine the scary sequence of events if the trailer had crashed into your car.
The driver of the pickup and the trailer were driving at night because of compulsion. However, if it was you, it was avoidable because you were driving for pleasure.
We do understand there can be occasional exceptions on the need to drive at night. I will write about my own unavoidable need to drive through the night in different post(s) later on.
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* Mishap And Calamity
