An
incident that took place this week, in my home town Pune, raises serious
concerns about safety of commuters on road. A 26-year-old engineer
working with a private company, was stabbed and his car driver
assaulted by three unidentified persons, including a six-seater “For
Hire” vehicle driver, on an outer road in Pune. The incident
happened, when this engineer's car was parked near a roadside
ramshackle cabin shop by the driver to buy some tobacco. The time
was about 11 PM and a 6 seater “For Hire” vehicle, perhaps never
saw the car in the darkness, and rammed into it before turning
turtle. There were heated arguments as the “For hire” vehicle
owner and the 3 passengers demanded money from this engineer for
damages caused. The engineer refused to pay and just left. About 200
meters ahead, the “For Hire” vehicle managed to stop engineer's
car. He and his co-passengers, pulled the engineer out from the car
and stabbed him. He fell down, bleeding heavily. His car driver,
instead of helping him. Just ran away terribly scared. Meanwhile, two
persons who were passing by, saw this guy lying injured and took him
on their motorcycle to a nearby Hospital. However, they robbed him of
his two cellphones and cash of Rs500 before dumping him outside the
hospital.
I am
not trying to analyze here the case; or who was the actual defaulter
or anything of the sort, that is for the police investigators. My
concern here is about the basic general tendency seen these days, to
express any feeling of anger, in form of physical violence, on roads.
This tendency along with extreme arrogance and disrespect for law,
are making the roads in my home town, a dangerous place.
Few
months back, I was trying to cross a busy one way street. As there
are no pedestrian crossings provided anywhere, one needs to cross the
road, when signal lights at a far off place turn red. While crossing
the road, I was naturally looking at the far off signal, from where
the traffic would start flowing in few seconds again. A person riding
a motor cycle, suddenly came up to me from other side and jammed his
brakes. I felt really very startled and humbly pointed to him that
this was a one way street. He told me that he knows that, but the
rules are not meant for him. He was so arrogant and so sure that
police wouldn’t touch him that I thought it to be prudent to keep
quiet and just continued crossing the road. I am quite sure that had
I gone in an argument with him, he could have easily converted this
argument in some form of physical violence easily.
The
problem is that now almost every vehicle driver in Pune has
purposefully given up his or her traffic or civic sense. There is a
law of jungle here. Once on road, people drive with their animal
instincts of survival and have stopped bothering about niceties and
orderly behaviours. This fundamental change now often leads to road
rage.
An
incident happened recently, when an elderly man was trying to cross a
side lane joining a busy thoroughfare. When he was patiently waiting
on a curbside, a motor cycle rider sharply turned into the lane,
speaking on his mobile, which was held up near his ear by pressing
his head on one side on his shoulder. While turning, he suddenly
spread left hand, making an animated gesture while talking he never
noticed this elderly man standing on curbside. His outward spread
hand hit the elderly man all of a sudden and made him loose his
balance, he fell down hitting a tree trunk and broke rib bone and had
to suffer a long illness in the bed. The motor cycle driver never
even bothered to look back or take care of the old man and just
speeded away. Poor elderly man had to suffer a long illness for no
fault of his.
Driving
a four-wheeler has become a nightmare in Pune as people do not seem
to have patience while commuting. People do not follow lane
discipline which often leads to minor accidents, sometimes turning
into big fights. New induction of SUV's on the roads has created
further congestion on the narrow roads. Even traffic police have
become helpless bystanders, who mostly spend their time instead of
controlling traffic, collecting fines from an odd fellow, who has
broken the law.
In
Pune, usually nice and polite people, turn into wild animals, once
they start driving on road and if they meet any obstruction or are
resisted, they become angry wild animals with a road rage that could
even kill.
26
December 2012
