A stitch in time saves nine- it saved at-least mine.

Yes, indeed, a small stitch can nine! It at least saved mine.

I can cite multiple examples from my experiences.

The sad demise of Cyrus Mistry recently reminded me of one of my experiences.

Had they been wearing the seat belt, it was very unlikely that this sad death would have happened.

A similar incident has happened to me as well.

We were traveling to Jamshedpur from Kolkata by road in the first week of June 2014.

We started a little early in an Innova. My colleague Arindam and I were sitting in the back seat.

I put on the seat belt and told Arindam to do the same.

Since we started early, I wanted to catch my lost sleep and thought it would be wise to put on the seat belt as we may not be looking at the road.

Secondly, union minister Gopinath Munde died in a car crash just one or two days ago, and the horror of that news was fresh in my mind.

It felt like I was sensing something as if my inner voice was telling me to be cautious and take precautions.

And it sounds like almost some kind of prophecy becoming true!

We were sleeping in the back seat and about to cross Kharagpur.

Suddenly we heard a big screeching sound; we were awake in shock, trying to figure out what had just happened.

In a couple of seconds, we could figure out our Innova was almost on the edge of the road.

We asked the driver what had just happened.

He said almost apologetically that there had been a head-on collision with another passenger car.

We then asked him whether he was okay or not, and he said he was okay; thankfully, he was also wearing the seat belt.

We came out of the car and saw that the bonnet and part of the engine were damaged.

Then we looked around and saw the frightening scene; almost 100 meters away, a Red Chevrolet hatchback car was upside down in the middle of the road.

Thankfully there was no major injury there as well.

Of course, we could not travel to Jamshedpur, so we returned to Kolkata.

Even today, when I think of that event, I thank myself for taking proactive steps for our protection.

Sometimes in life, we overlook things critical to our safety and well-being.

We tend to think bad things will not happen to us and it happens only to others.

It is true that 99% of the time we travel on a highway, we may not have an accident, but the other 1% could be fatal if it happens.

Why only for travel?

In our personal life or for the organization, instead of assuming things will not go wrong, it is wise to take measures that can proactively avoid mishaps.

As Murphy’s law states If there is a possibility of several things going wrong, the one that will cause the most damage will be the one to go wrong.

This means that If there is a worse time for something to go wrong, it will happen then.

Big catastrophic damage need not begin with a glaring reason; it can start with little and non-obvious issues.

Timely attention to such issues can avoid huge losses later.