Saudi Arabia: Some Thoughts on a Dammam-Jubail Highway Accident - Any Lessons?
by P A Hameed Padubidri
Daijiworld Media Network - Saudi Arabia
Dammam, May 17: When travelling by road from one place to another across the desert in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, it is a common sight to see the vast stretch of sand starting from both right and left sides of the road and ending at the infinite point of the horizon.
Sometimes we feel the exotic beauty and elegance all the way through the desert, which often gives a feeling of a wonderful canvas as if it was deftly drawn by nature itself.
The real touches of the sayings "From the Camel to the Cadillac", "Deserts to Desserts" and the like slowly start pricking the hearts of the nature-loving travellers and one gets feelings of something out of the ordinary. Propensity for the sights of nature goes on increasing when we see the 'ships of the desert' – camels - nibbling at the little growth in the desert.
The perception goes on changing when we run into different types of panorama of the desert. Often it looks as if it is a red-coloured mattress spread to give sanctuary for the camels.
But at the same time, our sensibilities get suddenly gloomy when the sight of the bits and mangled metal pieces of vehicles catches our eyes. A deep silence behind the debris lying on both sides of the highway causes us to be dragged by a flood of thoughts of nothing but a filament of sad story, tears of mourning, cry of a family, loss of many things and so on…
Oh! What a mishmash of feelings and sensibilities !
We cannot find such a sensibility when we go around the concrete cities of the skyscrapers in the Kingdom. Travelling through the desert is not uncommon in order to move from one city to another city. Those scenes commonly come into sight when travelling from Riyadh to Dammam and vice versa, Jeddah to Riyadh and vice versa, Dammam to Jubail and vice versa and other parts of the Kingdom.
Here is a case of contributory negligence of two cars that met with an accident. A car, upon collision that took place on Thursday May 8 at about 6.45 am, turned into a ball of fire on Dammam-Jubail Highway The cars were at such a high speed (180 kmph) that they could not be controlled despite all the efforts of the drivers. Consequently one car became an easy target of fire.
These pictures were sent by a friend. They were a bit unsettling all right. But the message that came along with this news was more touching and thoughtful. The message read, "Please watch out and drive cautiously at all times. Remember that someone dear is waiting for you to come back home at the end of every day".
What a moving message that sounds as an alarming call of caution for all those who drive in a rash manner and are negligent !
Rest of the things in God's hands...
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