My usual speed on highway is 60-70 Kmph in day time, at night it is drastically reduced depending on presence of dividers & visibility;
Which is limited by head lights range, given my two humble Manual transmission Maruti Suzuki Alto LXi cars, my speed on highway at night is limited to 45-55 Kmph. I'm known to be an efficient & sometimes a tad too fast in city traffic, but I follow lane discipline religiously, never cutting lanes & never skipping indicators.
Given above information, you can assume I'm probably the most overly cautious driver, who even listens to slow music so, as to avoid temptation of rash driving. Additional note here, that Music affects me profoundly, so much so, that I avoid sad songs since I cannot shake the gloom off for another 3 days.
By now, you must have gathered my driving to be highly uneventful, which was the case till last fortnight, Having driven 1,50,000+ Km,
without considering my attempts at learning the art of driving, or my attempts abroad. My first Alto was scratched on all sides while getting in & out of parking. But once I mastered parking, honestly which, took a lot of efforts, some revision of solid geometry & motion physics, My car was eventually safe from parking attempt dents. But was frequently hit at rear end mostly while starting from the traffic signals. Since the rear bumper was replaceable & economic thanks to Maruti Suzuki's mass production, I never got down from car to haggle with tailing driver who broke my bumper. This bumper break once happened at night 11 pm at Hinjewadi Chowk, Pune, this time I was badly shook. A wise Indica driver besides me told me to run as the biker who hit my car's bumper was drunk & riding the bike without head lights ON. My honest confession, this was the only time I ran from the incident, generally on being hit I get rescued by Traffic cop on signal, who notes down all details, then explains to me how it was not my mistake & cheers me up by telling me not to get disheartened.
Now about the event which changed my perspective on lot of things. As an adventure I took driving on an unknown highway at night to test my driving skills Nashik-Thane ( 125 Km), Not a long stretch compared to my usual Pune-Nashik-Pune (217 Km one way) drives on weekend. Because the road was new for me, I was driving slower than usual. I got pulled over by cop before entering Highway around 7 pm, showed him all the documents including car registration document & my license, which usually triggers a debate, about authenticity, Cops general argument I do not look old enough to drive. I usually take that as a compliment :) & show any other ID proof I'm carrying. After seeing all the documents the cop was convinced I was no evil just confused about the way so gave me all the needed directions to enter the highway. Note, my license is 10+ years old :). If you are good at maths that must have given you a hint about my age.
I started driving towards Thane around 7:15 pm, and noticed both of my fuel gauges (Petrol & CNG) were closing to empty. So, I pulled over at next Petrol Pump, did a TANK FULL. Entered Kasara Ghat, my childhood memories of this Ghat are full of long episodes of Nausea & Vomiting. Note here, I've very bad motion sickness, which is not psychological, inner ear sensitivity. This is also prime reason for me to drive car as I can slow down to less than 40 before turning, to avoid repeat of episodes. Motion sickness is a thing I've tried explaining to 3 of my chauffeurs & most of my friends, but in vain :( . So, 8 yrs back I finally started driving Car, tired of getting sick while someone else drove.
Around 9:30, I started getting too many head light flashes, so I had to leave right lane. Unfortunately the Left lane of that highway is totally blind to turns & entering lanes. At one particular turn, I got to know it was a turn only after turning the steering wheel so could not slow down much, started honking. Near Padgha, location that I now know. I saw a red bus entering perpendicular to highway to cross it, within 8 feet of my car's bonnet, I knew from my experience that my car wouldn't stop within that distance, old model would have stopped on hard braking, but the new Alto is not that happy to respond to the brake.
Had an epiphany, instead of hitting the Bus sideways between its two sets of wheels, I steered car towards the front tyre of bus to avoid serious head injury. Thank god & heavens my precious brain was saved.
Now about the life Changing experience. I keep griping about how Indians need to learn civic sense. How most Indians are insensitive on the road, do not stop to help on highways. Believe me I do act to help in such situations, I've reported many accidents to Police control room & highways patrol.
Called Ambulance a few times. But I was taken aback & overwhelmed with the sheer amount of help I got.
I must be god's favourite child for despite all the hardships he puts me through he is always there to help me navigate through them. There were around 25 people who rescued me out of my damaged car & nabbed the drunk driver on my request. The Ambulance came in about 3 minutes, by then saw my phone was broken, used company phone to dial my brother, told the Ambulance driver to tell him where he is taking me. Ambulance took me to a Multi-speciality Hospital in Bhiwandi as I requested them to take me towards Thane, since it was closer.
Hospitals bring back another rush of memories to me, they were my second home all through out my childhood since my age of 6 months; when the doctors realised I was not a vegetable though rendered immobile by Cerebral Palsy to my age of 13 years when I decided hospitalization is enough & I do not want my SSC education to be disturbed. This part of my life deserves another post or may be a book.
Back to my experience at Bhiwandi Health Care Multi-speciality hospital. I've had loads of experiences with doctors who trivialise my injuries some even do not give any first aid other than pain killers because I'm not crying in pain. A person of my experience gets to learn a fundamental of life very early, I can either let my forever present pain decide a life for me OR I decide for myself & ignore the pain so, that I can live the life my way. Needless to mention, I chose second option. Since pain does not make me faint, I was in all my senses & I told the doctor I've spastic CP & Tachycardia, Arrhythmia which tagged along with my CP. I could see disbelief in his eyes, by then my body surprised me too, it started swelling all over. Since I was not letting anyone touch my legs, he made out pain in my legs must be severe. He asked me how I got CP, I told traumatic birth, had a large head, full term, healthy 8 pounds baby. The Gynaecologist did not decide to do a C-Section despite missing heartbeats, I guess that removed all his confusion.
Orthopaedic surgeon asked me to do a straight leg raise, for both of the legs I knew my right knee was dislocated, but I still managed to do a straight leg raise till about 30 Deg, which is almost as good as my normal muscle tone. But it was extremely painful, I told him so. then the X-rays began. there was a thin fracture discovered in knee, but I insisted it is dislocation since I tried moving the knee joint to get full range of motion out of it & the Pain got me sweating profusely. Despite that I managed to move my leg from 75 Degrees extension to 25 degrees. The Next morning the Ortho accepted that the patella is broken, dislocated & needs surgery.
The Hospital promptly got a panel of surgeons & stitched back my patella using K-wire on Sunday.
Well change of perspective is in order. "India has made an immense progress in Medicine" & definitely a big leap in sensitivity for highway accidents.
This post is to thank all those highway drivers, & Ganna Juice wala (Raswala) who helped me that night. And the Cops who assured me that they will take care of all my belongings inside my car.
I'm still trying to understand why so many people rushed to help me, but I believe, this is God's way of saying he is watching over me.
Kindly note, no names have been included as I've not got permission that the respective names can be included.
