Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Unpaid summonses does not equal negligence

You know what I do not get? I do not get why newspapers/blogs who report on accidents must make it a point to dig out how many traffic summonses the driver has.

The recent bus accident along the North South highway was no exception. ALL headlines must be such :-

"Double Decker bus overturns, DRIVER HAS 8 SUMMONSES"

Ok, so he has eight unpaid summonses and in fact some warrants of arrest were issued. (shows how efficient our police are- warrant of arrest issued but no arrests were made)

Does that automatically mean that he is a BAD driver? And that automatically means that the cause of the accident was the driver's negligence/recklessness or due to his bad driving?

Have none of you ever been issued a summons for the stupidest thing ever? Like the road that leads out of Hartamas where the policemen hide behind the bushes to catch us "speeding"? To me its termed "speeding" because the speed limit there is a god forsaken ancient Roman times speed of 60km per hour. And all you need to do is go a little beyond that and the police jump out of the bushes and catch you and issue you a summons. Or if you are on a highway and the speed is 110km p/hr, and you happen to go beyond that by a little, say, 120, and ta-da, you will receive a summons in your mail.

So, what if the very next day you are involved in an accident, which causes fatalities, would it be fair to you if the headlines read " WOMAN KILLED IN ROAD ACCIDENT, MANY UNPAID SUMMONSES?"

WTF? Just because you happen to say, speed along the highways or some roads with stupid speed limits, does not mean you are a bad driver or any accidents which involves you is definitely caused by negligence.
I have to agree with my father when he said that most accidents happen not because the driver was driving too fast, it was due to inexperience on the highways. Many of these drivers have not left their kampungs or hometowns before and so they either drive TOO slow, causing a traffic jam or drive too fast not knowing the bends or the slopes and donwhills on the highways.

So, a traffic summons does NOT, I repeat DOES NOT spell RECKLESSNESS. It may be ONE of the assumptions, but it does not ALWAYS spell recklessness.

Imagine you were the family of the bus driver and all headlines scream that your father/husband or son was the cause of the accident just because he has EIGHT UNPAID SUMMONSES, how would you feel?

I would feel like crap. Especially if I know, the summonses were stupid summonses which the traffic police are hell bent on giving in Malaysia. What if one of it was because he did not wear his rear seat belt?

Stupid isn't it?

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