So I was enrolled in this training of being an internal audit for that safety & environment standard thing. One of the points that brought my attention is the safety hierarchy. The trainer showed us this triangle of the accident & incident hierarchy. So it says, for every 10000 unsafe actions that we do, will lead to 600 near miss, 30 property damage, 10 Minor accidents, and 1 Major accident (death). I know it seems like a small probability. But think of it this way, when your unsafe actions become a habit, meant that you’ll be doing it more than you can think of, and you are one step closer to a near miss, minor accident, or even death.
A little story of experience, It’s been a year since I travelled a long way from work, to home, and campus to finish my master degree. It was only a year of heavy travelling, speeding up above 140km/hour, at dawn or late night, to arrive on time. Everybody thinks that accidents happen but not to me. That’s what I thought, till I hit another car and pay a really good price for it. The point is, somewhere along that unsafe heavy travelling, must have experience a near miss *almost hit another car, or other things*, but never put any attention to it and keep doing what I’m doing. Thank goodness it doesn’t take more for me to realize that staying safe on the road, is important.
Then I came up with this pledge, of staying safe on the road. It’s time to make a promise to self, to get home alive.
- 1 meter for every 1km/hour This is a pledge for not tailing the car in front of me. Give some space. Tailing the car in front of you is not going to scare him away, or make your ride faster. This thing actually come from my dad. For example if you're riding at 80km/hour speed then at least you have to be 80m away from the car in front of you.
- No more than 100km/hour *or 120km/hour tops,, okay2, I know it’s still too much, but I can’t help it on this one, men it’s a highway!!* . bottom line is NO SPEEDING!! No need to rush, just be patient. :)
- There’s time to push, when you’ve pushed hard enough, then let go. This needs to be done especially when dealing with motorcycles, angkots, buses, trucks, and those smart a** people. If they're not going to back off, held your anger and back off. Remember that old saying "Menang jadi arang, Kalah jadi abu" there's no point in dealing with this people. No matter how right you are, just let them go first.
- Focus You know how sometimes you got caught up on what the people on the radio said, or talking to your travel mate, or busy enjoying the songs on the CD, well,, don't forget you still gotta focus on the road. Hey it's a massacre out there. So better be careful.
- Put on your Safety Belt 'Nuff said, my finance director once scold me for not wearing a safety belt just because i sit in the back. and i thought, hey there's no rule that requires me to wear seat belt while not in front seat. then again come to think of the safety, you should wear a seatbelt regardless where you seat.
So that's how we do it. The more the merrier, let's stay safe on the road.
Remember accidents could happen to us :)
