Dangers in reversing a car.

This is not the first time; neither is it the second time nor the third time I have read about someone reversing his car into something behind him.

Why I have done it at least twice in my life. At a parking lot, one of the supposedly safest place to reverse, I drove into a low, big potted plant and was only aware of my carelessness when a thud shocked my senses to get me to instantaneously brake too late as damage to the rear portion of my car had already occurred.

Another time, I reversed from an entrance with the road cleared of any traffic only to be told by that sudden thud again that something had suddenly appeared from a nearby side-road into my path. Fortunately, there was hardly any damage as both cars belong to the tough thick metal variety of earlier days.

I was lucky as all that has happened to me had nothing to do with human lives. However, that is not to say that such tragedies do not take place. Well, only this morning I read in the Star newspaper how a little two-year old girl paid with her life when an uncle reversed his car out of their house in preparation for a trip with her and the family. When the thud was heard, the poor child was down with some brain damage and the hospital could not help her.

It was such an incident that I read of more than twenty years ago that caused me to be very cautious about having children near my car especially when I wish to reverse. In fact, since reading of that similar incident in the late 1980s I reversed into the house so that I drive straight into the road each morning. Somehow, we are more careful when we reverse into our house as we do not wish to crash into the door or the wall. Well, we are more cautious. Besides that I would ensure that my children were inside the house, behind the bars of the metal door, when I reverse in, as I wish to be very sure any damage I make while reversing could only be to the door, the wall or the car. And that is not because I have no confidence in my driving. It's better to be safe than to be sorry, right?

Now, with my children grown up and none of them around most of the time, I conveniently park as most people do; drive straight into the porch and reverse out into the road. However, if there are small children around, we ought to learn from such tragic incidences.