Comment

On Friday, two died after a worst road accident in Navi Mumbai. A few days ago, Mumbai sat shell-shocked as the Bandra-Worli sealink witnessed four accidents in a span of 10 days — all due to reckless driving. The 5.6-km bridge connecting south and north Mumbai takes hardly 08 minutes to cross at normal speed, cutting the earlier travel time by one-third. But commuters want to move even faster. It’s a zero-time-hour frame overriding their minds. What puzzles me is whatever happened to our wits? Is reckless speed, which could at best diminish travel time by 2-3 minutes, worth it? How is it we are so insensitive to lives of others, just as we are to our own?

Which is why I am now going to argue why it is necessary to have pinching penalties to keep our wayward nature in check. Think of the statistics, Mumbai registered about 29,780 road accidents in 2008 as against a state figure of 75,520 during the same period. Is human life expendable? What would explain cases of drunken driving being hushed up and perpetrators slipping of the hands of law? The line has to be drawn somewhere. I guess there are more chinks in the law’s armour than there are offences. Let me give you an example. Have you ever heard of fitness monitoring of private vehicles on a periodical basis by RTO? It’s nowhere to be seen. While taxis have to undergo such tests, there is no such clause for private cars. Why?

Moreover and this is very pertinent, the prevalent insurance system is faulty. In other countries, vehicle owners can only drive and the driver has to be insured. If you have a second driver on the vehicle, then you have to notify that and insure that second person too. In fact, at least eight lakh drivers ply on Mumbai roads and 40 % of them have engaged drivers who has no insurance cover. When it comes to checks and balances, they are completely missing on drivers like they have no insurance. There is very little penalty in case of an offence and there is no cancellation of licences in the event of an accident. This inspires a feeling of waywardness, of temerity to thumb one’s nose at the law. Under the Indian law, an influential person can knock off somebody on the road and run away from the accident site. Later, after due consultation with a lawyer, he or she can surrender to the police saying that he was not on the wheels, thus buying time to arrange for a person from a poor family to take on the blame. Contrast that with other countries where, if a vehicle is registered, then the driver’s name is registered along with it. So you cannot make an excuse saying that you were not on wheels.

This brings us to another important issue — that of insurance policy. From a learner to some driver with 30 years of experience behind the wheels, the insurance premium you need to pay is the same. Again, compare this to other countries where, as you mature as a driver, your insurance burden keeps reducing. Cap that with an accident-free track record which gives you insurance incentives.Cut to India, there is no system to monitor accident or accident-free record of a driver. With the general insurance being de-tariffed in 2008, there ought to be a bond between insurers to collate data, so that when policies come up for renewal, they can document the number of claims that the policyholder has made. It is good that our insurers have slowly started to share their database to document the track record of drivers.

More offences, more penalty and vice-versa. It’s time to enforce deterrents. Road safety laws in Mumbai need a major shake-up. After all, deterrents may just help drill that much more responsibility into us.