Daily Lessons from Life 28 October 2014 - Chinese bus driver hits, kills cyclist after checking phone 39 times

"Chinese bus driver hits, kills cyclist after checking phone 39 times - AsiaOne  Oct 28, 2014

A bus driver in China's Jiangsu province is facing criminal charges after knocking down a cyclist while he was looking at his mobile phone.

The elderly victim, surnamed Yang, was pronounced dead at the hospital, Chinese media reports said.

Investigations from surveillance footage revealed that the driver, surnamed Gao, checked his mobile phone a total of 39 times in the seven minutes leading up to the accident at around 8.20am on Sept 5, 2014.

The bus he was driving was travelling at approximately 70km/h when it collided with Yang, who was crossing an intersection. Sina News reported that the police placed primary responsibility on Gao, whose driving licence has since been revoked for two years."

While this fatal accident happened in far away China, it is nonetheless a tragic death that could have been prevented. If we can learn something from this elsewhere in China and in Singapore, perhaps the loss of that old man life will not be in vain.

Lessons for me are:

1. inventors created new technologies and gadgets and other gizmos to help human manage their tasks, perform their work, even facilitating their relaxation, etc with the best intention. Often time, human were NOT READY to be the masters of these wonderful creations.

Many end up becoming slaves to the machines. Many minds were taken over by the machines. Luckily, 'many' here still means a MINORITY vs. the majority of gizmos owners and users.

However, when THAT MINORITY, even just ONE, can wracked havocs IF that ONE ended up taking an innocent life AWAY while being slave to the machines!!

That ONE become the overriding and significant ONE not to be dismissed!;

2. with the invention of new gizmos, how human being work with the machines become critical. Well designed integrated system and processes CAN help human being to cut down 'manual' mistakes to a degree only precision computing, mechanisation and integration machines can achieve. e.g. involvement of passengers on that bus to STOP the driver from glancing at his mobile phone through visual screen at the back of the driver seat. e.g. sensors that detect repeated 'dangerous movement of the head' of driver.

i.e. basically helping human NOT to become slaves to the machines!;

3. of course, the option in item 2 above is NOT the best solution. The best solution is the good behaviours of human over how to leverage technologies to help us instead of enslaving us. It will require a very clear mind-set of what are the RIGHT THINGS TO DO whenever we are using technologies and the gizmos that surround us. e.g. put away mobile phones when you are in a driver seat. Tell yourself in most of the cases, missing a message or a call is not life-and-death while attempts to read or answer one CAN cause death!. During meal time, especially with the family, enforce a 'no mobile phone regime' with everyone reminding each other to STOP fiddling with their mobiles unless it is 'life and death'.

It is easy to KNOW what to do, it is a totally different story when it comes to: DOING IT!

To KNOW is a start. To DO is putting what we know into ACTIONS. When we repeatedly DO what we KNOW well and consistently, a HABIT is formed. Once a habit is FORMED, it is harder to break. While I said this, some will say that 'a good habit is easily broken and once broken, will be doubly hard to develop back'.

Each has to find his/her best way to develop and sustain good habit of leveraging technologies and be their MASTERS!!