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.
A motorcyclist was following behind was taxi very closely. He was so impatient that
he was trying to overtake my taxi even near a sharp bend. At that critical moment, there
was an oncoming car. The taxi driver swerved to the roadside and I got a terrible jolt. It was
too late for the motorcyclist to avoid the car. His 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. All that happened in split second and fear overwhelmed
us.
The taxi driver stopped his taxi and I quickly ran to the nearest to the nearest
telephone booth to inform the police and the hospital. From a distance I could see some
people trying to help the injured motorcyclist and the car driver. They carried them into one
of the onlookers car and sent them to the hospital for treatment. Meanwhile the taxi driver
tried to control and directs the traffic. Soon the police arrived and they promptly took some
measurements and evidence. After 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.
When the taxi finally continued the journey, I silently thanked God for my narrow
escape. I learned a good lesson that impatience and recklessness would bring harm and
danger. I was happy to see that Malaysians 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 injuries, loss and lives and
properties.
381 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 honked angrily at them.
Just then I saw a young boy make a dash across the road. There was a loud blare of horn, a
squeal of brakes and I saw a car knock into the boy. He fell as though his feet were swept from
under him.
Fortunately 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. He was bleeding from a cut
on his head. A man came and examined the boy. Then he lifted the boy and carried him to a car.
They sped off, presumably to the hospital.
Many people surrounded the driver who looked dazed and bewildered. A policeman came to
calm things down.
As there was nothing I could do, I turned and walked down the road carefully. It was terrible to
witness an accident. I certainly would not like 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 door
and 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 next vehicle I came to was a big semitruck and its 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 he
was 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 OH MY GOD I did not mean to, OH MY GOD, I did not mean
to over and over again. As I looked over at the upside down Ford 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 Daddy! 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 quite 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 heads
turn even in idle curiosity. This is part of the tragedy of road accidents. They occur so
often that they are taken 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 back-page
paragraph except 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. No 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 makes the question of cure an immediate one. In most countries,
the accident rate goes up roughly in proportion to the increase in the number of
vehicles 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 complex indeed.
The first point to realize is that not all accidents are caused by the driver; quite often
the pedestrian is to blame. The "jay" walker who is liable to a heavy fine in the USA,
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 and
walk properly may be defective. Sometimes, the roads themselves present hazards; 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 hazards 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. Vehicle defects, however, results from careless
maintenance and the refusal to pay for necessary repairs. Faulty tyres, steering,
lighting and brakes cause many accidents. Badly focused or undipped headlamps can
blind oncoming traffic. But, it must be admitted that most accidents result from a
failure of the driver himself. Drink increased foolhardiness and slows reactions, and in
most countries, the penalties for driving under the influence of liquor are very
stringent indeed. But, many accidents results from a simple error of judgment due to
inexperience or lack of 'road sense' -- and it is unfortunate that so many people who
barely 'scrape; through their driving test gain their experience at the expense of other
people. Other relevant causes are inconsiderate driving, a momentary slackening of

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

perhaps and attack of illness at the wheel, or simply the desire to 'show off' to a girl
friend.
Just 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. Looking ahead,
the sane policy is to teach road manners, both to drivers and pedestrians alike.
Britain 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 exacting, and licenses withdrawn for long periods
following serious offences. Heavy 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 to
reinsure 'bad risks,' after which ti is unlikely that any other company will take them
on. Drunken driving - especially in Britain -- is severely punished nowadays;
'breathalysers' may become legal evidence after the government has laid down the
maximum quantity of liquor a person who is driving may consume in a given period.
Roads, of course, must be widened, improved, and modernized 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-tax, is actually spent on road-improvement.
Vehicles should be subjected to a five-year check, at least, and old commercial
vehicles to spot-checks. This would put many of them of the road.