In one of Vijayawada’s busiest junctions, Benz Circle, amongst the rush of vehicles was one unassuming member, and possibly the city’s youngest traffic offender — five-year-old Satish*. The boy, dressed in a white and yellow shirt and shorts, sitting in a bright blue battery operated car, drove right into a Benz circle, causing a massive traffic jam.
Satish stays in a colony near Benz circle, and managed to bring his bright blue car onto the main road, that was at least a kilometre away from his house. Satish’s parents reportedly didn’t realise that he had left the house. However, pedestrians on the road stopped the boy— along with Traffic SI Jagannath Reddy, who made sure that the boy was safe.
Visuals show the boy, who has an injury from a past incident, surrounded by pedestrians towering over him, with traffic cops trying to make sense of the situation and get him out of the car. Onlookers try to make conversation with the boy, to understand where he came from.
Speaking to TNM, Jagannath Reddy said, “He (Satish) was coming in a battery-driven car around 9.15 -9.30 am towards Benz circle road from the Fakirguda side. He was stopped near Jyothi Mahal theater by public. We then took an auto to take him to his house.”
“As his battery car is so small, many people did not notice it with all the big vehicles around. A big danger was averted. Who knows where he would have gone if no one had observed,” he added.
While visuals show the boy getting into an auto with the police, SI Jagannath said that by the time they tried finding the boy’s house, his mother had already begun to look for him.
Ravi Shankar, DCP (Traffic) said, “We were surprised about how the boy came so far, and that too till the busy road. It was good that local traffic SI acted swiftly and reunited the boy with his parents safely.”
The DCP also advised that parents keep a watch on their kids when they are playing.