Anti-Alcohol Drive Kills One

Nooria Haveliwala was in the news today because she was driving after drinking and ended up killing two people. Ironically one of them was a bike rider who was being tested for alcohol level. The news report does not say whether they did find any alcohol or not. If not, it is really sad that the poor guy lost his life because of some moron stopping him without reason. Secondly the woman was apparently driving at 120 kmph on a road which is pretty straight. What was the traffic police (five of them) doing? None of them saw the speeding SUV from a distance and made any attempt to slow it down or stop it. How is it possible? Unless, they were too busy harassing the biker and trying to maximize their night duty earnings.

I am in no way trying to condone the Girl's act. She was drunk and needs to be punished, not only for being drunk but also for killing people. Do I feel sad for the policemen? Yes, of course. But doing something for the heck of doing it goes much beyond sanity. It is the manner in which we go around trying to implement rules which makes me feel that everyone around me is stupid. When they catch someone who is drunk the guy walks out after a couple of hours and the fine is laughable.

So is the Government going to take some responsibility? I doubt it.Just like they didn't in the earlier cases. In the past many accidents have taken place when pavement dwellers were killed due to people losing control of their vehicles, more famously amongst them Salman Khan, Puru Rajkumar, Alistair Pereira. Now the government never bothered about the fact that in their regime people are sleeping on pavements. How come sleeping on pavements is not a crime? I mean forget about being drunk, there can be an accident with perfectly sane, not drunk people who lose control of their cars. A simple error of judgment, a small accident, becomes a major deal because there are people sleeping on the pavement. No one thinks about that and people continue to sleep on pavements.

It is not any different with people walking on the roads. They walk as if the roads are made for pedestrians. Nobody ever fines them for jaywalking. No one objects to anyone flouting all rules of crossing roads. No one even considers the possibility of the driver of a vehicle being innocent whenever accidents involving pedestrians take place. It is a crime to be a motorist, eh!

Coming back to the accident yesterday. People will be more careful if they sight traffic policemen regularly. But here the traffic Police people hide behind trees and corners and other vehicles so that they can catch people making mistakes and make some money out of them. If the girl in question knew that there would be traffic Police on the way she wouldn't have dared go upto a speed of 120 kmph. If she had sighted a single traffic Policeman from Breach Candy to Marine Lines, she would have been much slower. And here we had Five Policemen standing together at a single place. What were they waiting for? Another Ajmal Kasab driving by? Or does the Government ask the Police to move in groups to avoid any embarrassing situations.

It is high time the government takes some responsibility for their action or is it inaction? For such cases the investigation should not be limited to the accident but also to the circumstances leading to the accident. Here I mean the collateral damage due to policies and their execution of and by the Public servants.