..."hey Sammy,I think there's a bush that wants to pass us"
Posted on 02/16/2010 3:46:32 AM PST by myknowledge
Eight people have died and 40 have been injured when the driver of a truck lost control and ploughed into a wedding procession in western India, police said.
All the victims were friends of the groom accompanying him to the wedding late on Monday in a village near Jaipur, capital of western Rajasthan state, B.L. Soni, a senior police officer told AFP.
"It appears the driver was speeding and lost control of the vehicle, mowing down those who were walking along the road," Soni said on Tuesday.
The groom was safe, but some relatives sustained minor injuries, the officer added.
India has the highest annual road death toll in the world, larger than the more populous China, according to the World Health Organisation, with accidents caused by speeding, bad roads, overcrowding and poor vehicle maintenance.
In 2007, police figures showed 114,000 people died nationwide on the roads, one fatal accident every four and half minutes.
Disturbing fact, but nothing new in India.
..."hey Sammy,I think there's a bush that wants to pass us"
Thanks for posting. I forward all India related posts to my sweetie as his family are legal immigrants but they have family behind in India.
My brother-in-law (who is Indian) told me that these trucks are the single biggest cause of deaths on the roads in India. The drivers often have little or no training in operating large commercial vehicles (or any vehicle, for that matter), and drive as though they are the only ones on the road.
Also, it is a custom in India for the groom’s half of the wedding party to travel in a parade from wherever the groom was staying to the site of the wedding. The parade often has musicians, several cars, and a long string of wedding guests. They travel along the side of the road, and usually traffic stops or swings wide to pass such parades. My eldest brother-in-law is a senior MP in the Indian Parliament. I’ll see if I can lobby him to work to impose (much more) stringent testing for commercial operators, of trucks and buses (the other big problem there) to minimize this kind of incident.
Sounds very Conservative to me.
Wow. Thanks for the info there.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.