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Parag Parikh dies in car crash

An investor from India who attended Berkshire Hathaway’s annual meeting Saturday has died in a two-vehicle crash, and three other people were hospitalized with injuries.

The Omaha World-Herald reports (http://bit.ly/1AymdoX ) the crash happened before 7 a.m. Sunday in midtown Omaha. A 2014 Volkswagen Jetta was struck by a 2011 Chevrolet pickup.

Omaha Police said 60-year-old Parag Parikh of Mumbai, India, died at the Nebraska Medical Center. His wife, 59-year-old Geeta Parikh was in critical condition with head and chest injuries.

Two others in the Volkswagen — 42-year-old Rajeev Thakkar of Mumbai and 29-year-old Raunak Onkar of Maharastra, India — sustained non-life threatening injuries.

The truck’s 63-year-old driver was treated for a shoulder injury at a different hospital and released.

 Police Sgt. Chuck Casey said Thakkar was driving the Volkswagen at the time of the crash. He paused at a stop sign before pulling forward into the path of the pickup truck.

Police say Thakkar might face charges related to the crash.

Shailesh Shah says Parag Parikh was a stockbroker and his brother-in-law. Shah told the World-Herald that all four were in Omaha to attend Berkshire’s shareholder meeting.

“Parag was a very nice gentleman, very successful,” Shah said. “It still has not sunk into me about the death of my brother-in-law. It is very sad.”

Shah said all four of the people in the Volkswagen were on their way to the airport at the time of the crash. Thakkar and Onkar both worked for Parikh’s investment firm.-from Yahoo

2 replies on “Parag Parikh dies in car crash”

Its quite tragic .. Condolences to his family at this hour .. Such is the irony that he was’nt wearing a seat belt

It’s such a strange thing. I’m currently in US on company work and have a company given car which I drive around in. First few days I was scared taking the freeways cause the speeds there are 70-80miles/ hr (110-130km/h). After a few days of driving inside suburban roads and i finally got onto a freeway, and am now used to driving at 70mph. But its still quite fast, and there are accidents on freeways every single day. There is not one day I have been out on one of these freeways, and google maps hasn’t shown me an accident somewhere on the freeway.

Thing is, I drive a corolla and feel safe that since its a good quality car, it will be safe. But Mr Parikh was in a similar car Jetta and couldn’t survive. Amazing thing is cars as big as Corolla are called compacts here ! I was like huh.. if a corolla is a compact how big are cars in the higher category. Turns out, those are not cars, those are monster cars.

People here like driving pickup trucks or pickups, and those start from being slightly larger than corollas and can get way bigger. Its crazy how large or different these things are. You can’t call them a car anymore ! Then after seeing a few of these i realized why a corolla is a compact. I saw one guy actually haul a small boat or dinghy call it what in the back of his pickup.

Why do normal people want pickups? So that they can carry their bicycles on weekend trips and cycle at their destination. No, seriously. Some people have two cars, one for normal commute, & one pickup for all these activities. I met someone who amongst a family of 4 people had 4 cars. And a ratio of >1 is quite common, especially amongst bay area families. Places like NY are very different. But suburban living is all about driving.

But hearing this news today has quite shaken me a bit.

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