…As Amateur Driver Rolls SUV Into Shop
By: FRANK ABOYEDE
[dropcap]W[/dropcap]hat would have become a bloody tragedy was averted at Ado-Ekiti yesterday(Monday), when three children and their mother escaped being crushed to death by a Sports Utility Vehicle, which accidentally drove into a wooden shop, after its driver lost control.
According to an eye-witness account, the Isuzu Rodeo SUV car, black, Automatic, with special Royal Registration Number, ONISAN, was in the morning, delivered for silencer repair, to a panel beater, whose workshop is located behind a row of wooding shops facing Nigeria Immigration Service. The panel beater, we learnt, finished welding the car’s silencer at about 12noon and attempted to test drive it. As soon as he started the car, which he already positioned on reverse mode, the car moved backward, hitting several objects on its way before the driver managed to stop it.
Rather than stopping there, the amateur driver put the car on DRIVE mode and started the engine again. As the car responded, driving forward, the panel beater lost control. To stop the car, which was already increasing speed, he steered to the left, where the wooding shops were and tore through the rear wooden wall of the mother of two’s shop until stopped by a wooden pillar.
Motoring World gathered that the mother escaped being crushed, because shortly before the incident, she had stepped out to somewhere nearby. Whereas the children were yet to be back from school. We gathered that whenever the children return from school,
they would normally stay with their mother in the shop and most of the time have siesta on a blue mart, over which the left front tyre of the SUV climbed.
Efforts made to identify the panel beater for an interview proved abortive, as he had gone into hiding, while his colleagues and neighbours made efforts to push the car out of the shop.
However, one of the technicians working with the culprit, who refused to be identified, confided in Motoring World reporter that the panel beater is not a licensed driver.
The mother of three, who returned shortly to find out what would have befallen her and her children dropped on the floor, almost fainted but for the help of neighbours, who assisted her away from the scene.
A police officer, who visited the scene was persuaded not to do any investigation, as according to co-shop owners and neighbours, the panel beater and owner of the damaged shop were related and that since no life was lost, the panel beater would repair the shop.
