Footage of 5-year-old clinging to speeding motorbike after parents are thrown off will send chills down your spine
Indian roads are notorious for being chaotic as hell, and pose especial risk for motorbike riders, who are often seen riding without helmets. Accidents are frequent, and the fatality rate is one of the highest in the world. One such bike accident was captured on camera in the southern state of Karnataka, wherein a 5-year-old was seen clinging to the vehicle even after her parents had been thrown off it, surviving against all odds of the situation. In the footage which was captured by the dashcam of a car behind, the child can be seen astride the bike, which miraculously kept moving forward for a good couple of hundred metres without being hit by any passing vehicle, and finally making a soft landing on the grassy median.
The bike-borne family had been on the Tumakuru-Bengaluru Highway, when in a split second they crashed into another motorbike on one side of the road. The parents were thrown off by the impact but the child was still on the bike which kept going down the highway.
The parents were spotted rolling on the ground but the child held on and was miraculously unhurt when the bike finally came to a stop 200 meters away from where the parents lay. It just misses a large truck and then lightly crashes into the median. The child fell onto the grass and was unhurt in the incident.
The Times of India reported a witness as saying: "The biker was headed towards Bengaluru from Nelamangala. He tried to overtake vehicles from the left, resulting in the accident. Luckily, no one sustained major injuries." People were spotted rushing out of their cars to help the toddler and were seen picking her up from the bushes where she had landed. An ambulance was immediately called to the scene and the authorities were informed of the crash.
The person on the other motorbike that the family had crashed into was taken to the Nelamangala Government Hospital after suffering from a few head injuries that were sustained from the crash, The mother was also taken to the same hospital and was treated for minor bruises on her forehead. The father fled the scene after the accident.
Nelamangala Traffic Police Inspector Ramesh GR spoke of the missing father and said: "The biker was riding rashly and that too without a helmet and fled from the scene after the accident. A case of rash and negligent riding has been registered against the biker. [sic]"
According to a report by the Times of India, 146,377 people were killed on the road in the country in 2017 alone.
This high death toll on the road is understandable when you see videos such as the one above that show adults making unsafe decisions on the road while traveling at breakneck speeds. As is evident from the video, sometimes whole families sit on motorbikes and mopeds and they are often seen trying to squeeze through gaps in the traffic to get to the front of the pack.