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-   -   Nine Kerala schoolchildren die in accident (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/shifting-gears/50073-nine-kerala-schoolchildren-die-accident.html)

Kannur: Nine schoolchildren aged between five and nine years were killed in Kerala on Thursday when a van ploughed into them as they were returning home from school, officials said.

The students belonged to the Irikkur Sree Narayana Primary School at Irikkur, 50 km from here. The vehicle was driven by Abdul Kabeer.

While the nine died instantly, at least 15 others were injured. A few of them are in serious condition.

People in the area apprehend the driver and handed him over to the police.
(source:manorama news)

News like this makes me wonder whether we were lucky to not be a statistic in our school days.

Yes, read about it in today's paper. So sad. RIP kids. I'm fully ok with speedbreakers in school zones.

Accidents like this are waiting to happen in Kerala(or for that matter most places in India). I hope that the driver will repent his whole life for killing those kids and I hope that others learn the lesson that with (great)power comes (great)responsibility.

This is a real tragedy and dont know when such accidents will stop in this country.
My 2 yr old son is gearing up to go to school and such incidents send shiver down the spine.

May God give strength to parents and family of the children.

RTO officers are the culprit, who approve/renew the permit, without even looking at the vehicle conditions. Many of the school vans are just not street worth.

I see here in Bangalore, many junk yard Maruti Omini's transposting little wonders to their school. Parents needs to be aware of the Risk.

regards,
-manju

Do you honestly think that the driver mowed down the kids knowingly ? It was an accident and I am sure it will haunt him for the rest of his life. If you didn't know, it was the same driver who put the injured kids in the same Trax and took them to hospital. He did all he could, after what happened. And no, I do not know the driver.

Accidents happen everywhere, not only in Kerala. I will tell you the story of a private bus driver. In most buses in Kerala, there is a guy called 'checker' who eggs on the driver to drive fast(they try to cover other buses which left earlier and take more passengers). So this particular driver was involved in a few accidents, some of them resulting in deaths. The cases are always dealt with by the owner(read, nothing ever happens) and checker continues to harass the driver. One day, a small kid ran into the road in front of the same bus and got killed. No fault of the driver. He decided he could not drive the bus anymore and became a taxi driver, where there would be no pressure on him to drive at speed/rash.

I appreciate your sentiment, but how did you come to this conclusion? FYI, no school van was involved, rather it was a Tempo Trax(one stupid reporter identified it as Ford Tempo Trax - getting mislead by the Firodia emblem used earlier by Bajaj Tempo) coming from Malappuram.

There are different versions of the story in different newspapers, the driver claims that one of the kids ventured to the middle of the road suddenly to pick his slipper and he took evasive action. Another version says driver fell asleep as he was driving for a long time. A passenger in the Trax says that the driver suddenly fell silent after talking to him for a while, so maybe the sleep theory is plausible.

May the souls of the kids rest in peace.

As a sidenote, have you noticed that in cases where media attention is prominent, there is prompt action from the Police and politicians? If a single person dies in an accident, he/she becomes just a statistic and no politician cares to visit or take any interest/action. Pity that.

May the kids souls rest in peace.
A local daily reported that the driver hadn't slept for a day and he dozed off at the wheel.

Another incident happened near my home on the route i usually take to office. A lady was riding pillion with her father on his scooter, the scooter hit a pothole and was thrown off the scooter. The bus which was coming behind the scooter ran over her head and she died on the spot.

I'm not saying that the driver mowed down the kids knowingly(come on, who with a sane mind will do that?) but most of the time accidents happen due to our own negligence and thats' where responsibility comes in. And please read my post carefully, I'm not trying to single out just the Kerala bus drivers or something of that sort. And thanks for the info, atleast this driver is not like others who kills and flies away.

Dear Kuttapan, exactly that's what I said, it happens everywhere in India not just Kerala. So can you please calm down a little bit.