It was New Years Eve 2009, and me and my family went to Manila for dinner. I was driving slowly on a street with little or no lights, approaching a small intersection I slowed down traveling around 10kph, when a kid zooms in front of me. Good thing my foot was on the breaks and I was able to stop.
My whole family was shocked so I stepped out and checked on the kid. I was so angry that I cursed the kid and asked him what was he thinking. At that time I was scared and angry all at the same time. It was my first accident involving a person. He answered that his chest was hurting. So I was worried that
there was internal bleeding that I told my family to get out of the car and just ride a pedicab to my grandparents house.
there was internal bleeding that I told my family to get out of the car and just ride a pedicab to my grandparents house.
I told the another kid to help the kid up to the car. I rushed to the nearest hospital. The hospital needed a close relative around so I went back to the place of the accident because he lives near there and went looking for his mom. All I found was his brother, luckily when I got back to the hospital his mom was there.
The kid lives in a squatters area so meaning less fortunate, so I took care of all the expenses in the hospital and medicines. Luckily it was just bruising and nothing else. So I was happy and told the mother to take care of her kid next time and don't let him ride bicycles at night. The brother on the hand wants money for the bicycle. Which made me angry. My car has damages that I did not charged them and yet he wants money. I was so angry that I scolded him. after that I just wrote a contract saying that we are settled and no charges will be filed etc. before I gave the medicines and hospital receipts of course.
I hate that the Law has no protection over car owners with these kind of matters. Here in the philippines, if you hit a pedestrian, bicycle, motorcycle with a car you are sort of required to pay for everything. Even if clearly you are not at fault. This is based on my experiences. In my case, the kid was clearly at fault, his a minor, his bicycle has no breaks, it was an intersection and he did not stop. Yet I still paid for everything. Maybe its in our culture, but this really needs to change.
LESSON: If you're driving near slums/squatters area please be very careful when crossing intersections. Specially intersections with no stoplights. Some children or even adults do not have the road ethics to stop and look first. So let's do our part and slow down and put your foot on the breaks just in case anything like this happens.
