Missing rear wheel

This can happen anywhere in India, I suppose.  So long as we have truck drivers with scant regard for safety norms. Driver of this heavy-duty vehicle appears  particularly indifferent to the danger he posed to others on  road.  Of course we can’t expect the police presence  everywhere,  at all times.  Highway patrolling is there,  but we usually see them on the scene after an accident. Those of us on road who witnessed this speeding truck with a missing rear-wheel  had an obligation to report . But then  we are always in a hurry to get somewhere,  aren’t we ?

I happened by this heavy-duty  truck running on three rear wheels on a  highway near Udupi.  It was nearly 8 p m and I was on road in a car,  on way to Saligrama,  about 20 km from Udupi, for a wedding reception. We were running late ;  and the groom was in the car with me.  I cite this not as an excuse, but as a statement of my circumstances. Incidentally,  I wonder which number one dials  to report a speeding truck on three rear-wheels;  to report an accident waiting to happen on inter-state highway.
Glare from headlights of an oncoming vehicle indicates the speed at which the truck ahead of our taxi – a Tata Indica – was  moving.. I took these shots with an amateur camera, from the front-seat, under poor light beamed  from our car headlights. Taxi-driver Lakshmana didn’t want to get too close to or  stay behind the heavy vehicle any more than the moving traffic warranted . He was in a hurry to overtake at the first available opening on road ahead, saying it was dangerous to be behind the vehicle with a missing rear-wheel. What is not evident in the picture is the right wheel of the truck wobbled as it sped.