Sunday, returning home after a converts’ meeting I had to hitch a ride with some friends. Three minutes into the journey a reckless bus driver almost ran into us.
‘Watch out!’
I cried out to the lady driving. She swerved aside for the bus and slowed down on her speeding.
‘What was that?’ she asked as she brought the car to proper balance along the way.
Now I was the only man in the car.
‘Just be careful and let him go’, replied another lady.
The third was just too glad that the bus had not bump into us.
Road accidents are Common place with Common mistakes leading to them at least so it seems.
I was scared after that event and I think the lady beside me in the back seat noticed, so she said to me,
‘This is how some of you experience drivers react, you never want someone else to drive you, and you get jittery.’
‘Yes you’re right I said to her.’ I paused to look at her.
‘It’s not comfortable to not have any idea of safety first
when you’re driving and that’s the reason I always use the sit belt whenever I find myself with drivers whom I have no first hand idea of their driving skills or experiences.’
My fear grew worse when she got on the connecting bridge majorly due to her poor driving skills which is reflected in her poor handling of the wheel, excessive speeding and inability to make decisions and execute them instantaneously behind the wheel.
All these made me worry about her competence behind the wheels. It has been said that “it’s not everyone behind the steering wheel that is a DRIVER.”
At this point I turned to the lady beside me and asked her
‘What’s her name?’
‘Stacey’, she said,
‘Why do you ask?’
‘Well not that it’s Important but I think it might be necessary at some point’. I replied.
‘I figured it might come useful in case I have to pass some instruction to her before I get to my destination’.
It’s common sight to see broken down vehicles along this bridge, some with no warning signs or the triangular scene caution plates, while a few simply stand along the road waving at you in the distance to beware.
One thing my woman driver did well was to speeding at l00 km/h as I had realize that it was better to keep an eye on how fast she was driving so I kept my eyes on the odometer.
Suddenly, we were approaching a broken down car on the speed lane while she was on the 100 km/h marker. Once again, we came to a point of quick reflex, thinking, decision and reaction and the only thing she did was to slam hard on the brakes, well not that it would have mattered if we had seen it afar off on a straight road but we had just came out of a long bend and there was another car less than 10 yards away behind us when the scene stood right along our path. I looked around immediately to assess our position with regards to other cars.
‘Pull out! Pull out!!’
I cried out to her as the car came so close to the broken down vehicle.
‘Stacey Pull out!’
Shouted the lady in the front passenger seat. I guessed she had equally made a quick assessment of what could happen next if Stacey did not move immediately.
The car swerved to the right immediately avoiding the obstacle ahead but still too slow for the car behind us. We hear a loud screeching noise behind us but we were not rammed.
‘Huh!’ I breathe hard with a sigh of relief in my seat and thanked GOD that we were alright.
