When Death Stared At Me On A Road

Here is a firsthand experience of an accident and how death stared at passengers travelling from Bengaluru to Hyderabad. But passengers were at their lousy best annoying the already-stressed bus driver.

Today, I had a near-death experience. The bus I was traveling in from Bengaluru to Hyderabad met with an accident on the Outer Ring Road, just 2 kilometers away from Hyderabad airport, with the wind-shield shattered completely, the main door crushed. It was a sight of horror for me at around 6:15 am when death stared at me. But who is to be blamed? the whinny passengers or the frustrated drivers?

I was travelling by a bus from Bengaluru to Hyderabad last night and the pickup was at 11:30 pm. The location was about a 2-minute drive from my place.

It was a sleeper (2+1) bus. For those of you who have no knowledge of the 2+1 concept- it is the arrangement of seats.

The ‘1’ represents the single berths on the left side and 2 is the double bed arranged on the right.  It is somewhat important to explain this and you will understand soon.

At about 11:45 pm, the bus reached Hebbala stop where the last set of passengers board the bus. I booked the first single berth because of hysteric nausea feeling I have as and when I go inside a bus.

Every berth is private and has a TV and a horrible headache inducing loud Telugu-drama playing on the screen.  Because the switch was dysfunctional, I had to live with that until the driver took control from his seat.

An hour into the journey, the driver stopped for a toilet break.

“Toilet jana hai toh abhi jaana,” a passenger attender said.  Two hours later, the bus stopped for a break for the second time and many passengers got off the bus again.  Cut to 6:15 am, I hear faint voices while I was half asleep, my neighbour and two others right at the door with one of them asking the driver to stop for a toilet break as his wife was making animated noises unable to control her bladder.

The driver exhausted and irritated yelled at them. He clearly was annoyed.

In just about a minute, there was a sudden jerk that broke my sleep. I could feel the bus slightly going off-balance.

The next second, I looked out of the window to see the left side of the bus penetrated into a truck just up until the beginning of my berth, just inches away from me.  Had the driver taken a minute longer to brake, I wouldn’t have been sharing this story.

One of the passengers said the driver was trying to overtake another bus from the left but didn’t anticipate a truck.

The glass pieces hit the attender, who was bleeding, but the driver was intact. The main door of the bus was smashed and the windshield was completely broken. I was watching the whole incident as if it were a dream.

The door which divides the berths and the driving area was jammed and stuck. We had to exit from the other end of the bus, fortunately everybody were safe and sound.

It was a lucky day for me.

But who is to be blamed in a situation like this? The driver who drives with no sleep? Or the annoying passengers?

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