Children’s safety on China’s roads is a worry, with awareness of the dangers far from acceptable. The country’s truck drivers, however, are an increasingly-professional bunch, as one proved in Jiangsu recently, when his quick reactions narrowly averted several deaths.
It had all the makings of a tragedy. On 10 July, in Nanjing’s neighbouring city of Yangzhou, a dumper truck drove through an intersection on the X202 county road. The light was green, and it being July of 2022, the streets were deserted.
它具备了悲剧的所有因素。 7月10日，在南京邻市扬州，一辆自卸车驶过X202县道的一个路口。绿灯亮了，现在是 2022 年 7 月，街道上空无一人。
Other than the truck perhaps going a little too fast for some, it was just another very hot day. That all then changed in the blink of an eye.
除了卡车对某些人来说可能开得有点太快之外，这只是又一个非常炎热的一天。一切都在眨眼之间发生了变化。
From behind a street-side shop at the intersection, a young boy runs out and begins to cross the road. But the truck is already in the middle of the intersection. The boy does not notice that he has perhaps just 1 second left to live.
一个小男孩从十字路口的一家街边商店后面跑出来，开始过马路。但卡车已经停在路口中间了。男孩没有注意到他的生命只剩下一秒了。
Driver reaction times to a given stimulus or event vary considerably and are dependent on factors such as professionalism, physical fitness and age, while time of day and weather also play a part. About half a second is a good average.
驾驶员对给定刺激或事件的反应时间差异很大，并且取决于专业水平、身体健康和年龄等因素，同时一天中的时间和天气也起着一定的作用。大约半秒是一个不错的平均值。
That left another half second for the speeding truck in Yangzhou to get out of the boy’s way. Swerving to the left, the driver manages to barely avoid the boy, while the truck careers across the other side of the road, onto the pavement and into the side of a residential building, knocking over a street sign in the process.
扬州那辆超速行驶的卡车又给男孩让路了半秒。司机向左转弯，勉强避开了男孩，而卡车则冲过马路的另一边，驶上人行道，撞上住宅楼的一侧，在此过程中撞倒了路牌。
Again, by a miracle, or rather two more miracles, there was no one in the house at the time of the collision and the driver of the truck was uninjured. The boy crossing the road got away with only cuts and bruises.
又是一个奇迹，或者更确切地说是两个奇迹，碰撞发生时房子里没有人，卡车司机也没有受伤。过马路的男孩逃脱了，只受了割伤和擦伤。
Footage of the incident from traffic cameras mounted above the intersection, which some readers may find disturbing, has been published by The Paper and can be watched via this link.
安装在十字路口上方的交通摄像头拍摄的事件录像可能会让一些读者感到不安，该录像已由澎湃新闻发布，可以通过此链接观看。
“Stop, look, listen, think”, is the mantra used in many countries in the educating of their children on how to safely cross the road. And that’s a concept we would all like to see drilled into China’s children a little more than is today, as the incident in Yangzhou shows only too well.
“停下来、看、听、想”是许多国家教育孩子如何安全过马路的口头禅。我们都希望看到这个概念比今天更多地灌输给中国的孩子们，扬州的事件就很好地证明了这一点。
