It’s a crazy world out there. Every day, people from different walks of life hit the road and meet traffic. These are people with different backgrounds, different characters, and different experiences in the day. However, the only thing connecting all of them is the road and the traffic. Of course, every now and then trouble is going to brew. That is unavoidable.
No matter how sane you are, or how sane you force yourself to be, the traffic will force you to lose it. And then, it will even get to a point where you’ll realize that all your sanity isn’t getting you anywhere. You need a little bit of craze, or other road users will walk all over you. So yeah, there will always be crazy experiences on the road. And I am no different.
The crazy experience I can remember was actually years ago. Not that long ago though, I think it was during my ND days. Back then, I was a strong believer in the Network Marketing Scheme and I was a Longrich brand ambassador at the time. Anyone who’s familiar with Network Marketing will know that it involves a lot of moving around because you’ll always be meeting new people and introducing the company and products to them.
In any venue we could secure, and any audience we could attract, we shared the good news of Longrich to draw more members in. Now that I think of it, the amount of travel I did during that period of my life is more than I’ve done in every other period joined together. I believe I went to almost every town in Imo State and I’m sure I also went to every State in Eastern Nigeria. I went to Enugu once or so, but I went to Aba and Awka multiple times because they were closer and I could easily go and come back to Owerri in one day.
It was an enjoyable period for me because I really got to see a lot of new things and learn a lot of new places. But, I’m going off point. Back to my crazy experience.
One day, we (myself and the guy who recruited me; let’s just call him Barrister) were on our way home from a seminar we had attended. The trip going had gone great and the trip coming back was great as well. There was a lot of time and place for things to happen, but Barrister was a good driver and he was careful.
But then, we got to his house. He lives on one of those streets that are considered major roads enough to be tarred and neat, but not enough that there will always be traffic. His street is just one of the many inroads in Owerri, roads that can lead from one place to another. Maybe that’s part of what caused him to let his guard down.
We spent about five minutes wrapping up and chatting a little bit. And then, it was time to get out. We did it simultaneously. He opened his door just as I opened mine. However, I was about to step out of the vehicle when I heard the loudest bag I’d ever heard in my life. You’d think knockouts and guns are loud until you’ve been in a car that’s been crashed into. I think it’s the fear that makes it so much louder because then it becomes fight or flight and your sense of hearing peaks.
For a few seconds, all I could hear was my own panicked breathing. But I was okay and without a scratch, matter of fact, the car hadn’t even moved an inch, even though it had been rattled. I turned then towards Barrister and saw him clutching his chest as he shut his eyes thanking God for sparing his life. However, my eyes widened when I saw what lay beside him.
His door was mangled. It was still fixed to the car, but it was bent backward and swinging slowly and lazily in the breeze. I stepped out of the car then and saw a shuttle bus that was parked a few paces from our car. The door to this bus was right in the middle of the road and the passengers, like Barrister, were looking grateful for being spared from a tragic accident. With just one look, it was easy to see what had happened.
Barrister had opened his door without checking to see if any vehicle was coming, and that had been a big mistake. If you’ve been to Imo State before, then you’d have an idea just how small the roads are. Still, people park on them and make it smaller for drivers. So, when Barrister opened his door to step out, the shuttle bus was already too close and he tried to swerve out of the way, but he couldn’t get out completely. Barrister’s door caught the shuttle’s and seeing as they were going in different directions, the laws of physics took precedence and the door to the shuttle bus was ripped completely off the bus. It fell so hard that the edges caved in and the windows shattered upon impact on the ground.
You might wonder how it was possible that a car could do that to a bus, well in Nigeria a lot of the buses they do are not standard. Some buses don’t have doors, and some do have one thing or the other that’s wrong with them. This particular shuttle bus had its door held by strings, cloth, and a sprinkling of prayers. If the door had been good, the car’s door would have been the one ripped off its hinges.
It was a scary moment, but since no one was injured, it was easy to recover from it. Barrister and the driver had to talk to settle. Barrister knew it was his fault for not checking to see that the coast was clear before opening his door onto a major road, and then also, the bus knew that he was driving a bus with faulty doors. But that’s no new thing, many buses don’t close their doors, and heat will kill their passengers. Lol!😂
So, I never forgot that moment. And since then, I’ve always been extra careful when crossing the road or when getting out of a vehicle. Whether I’m in my street or I’m on the highway, I’ll make sure that the coast is clear before I step out. Accidents can be quite traumatic, and I’m going to try my best to ensure I don’t get any.
