Death stared at him for few seconds, but fate rescued businessman B M Ravikant after a drunken driver hit his car on the Siridao slope. It was on July 22 and he was leaving for Shirdi with his partner Saiprasad. Both had a miraculous escape after a car smashed into them; but the memories are still fresh. Ravikant still thanks Lord Saibaba for saving them.
“The car came from nowhere and banged into my car. God saved us,” Ravikant had told Herald before going to the Agassaim Police Station. The medical test conducted on the driver confirmed that he was drunk. But as per our law, he was let off on a bail bond – a slap on the wrist.
This is not the isolated story and there have been countless instances of people getting hit on the road for no fault of theirs.
The story of Sandesh Khutkar and Kaiser Braganza is still fresh in the mind of all of us. The two victims were on a motorcycle when they were mowed down by Shobhika Gaur – under the influence of liquor – who was driving on the wrong lane of Campal road late one June night. They suffered serious injuries and Gaur, the hospital employee was released almost immediately on bail bond for the offence. Gaur incidentally is an employee of a private hospital and boasts of strong social and influential connections.
Though out on bail after a token 15-minute arrest, her licence hasn’t been suspended.
A sustained media campaign forced the police to act quickly and forced the Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar to personally take interest in the matter and ask for a report from the police.
However, for every Gaur there are so many hit-and-runs and accidents – many by drivers driving under the influence of alcohol.
These are just two incidents that surfaced and caught media attention but there are many more. In a special drive by the traffic police during the last one month, nearly 550 drunk drivers were caught red-handed driving vehicles.
A visit to the party zone in North Goa will boggle the mind and on most nights along the road from Baga to Panjim there is hardly any police presence, let alone with alcometers.
After the media campaign and the bad publicity that the enforcing agencies got after the Campal accident, they were forced start their checking. And the drive resulted in an astonishing 1,012 persons booked from January this year till August 26. This is five times more than the total number of 200 people booked in 2013. Traffic Superintendent of Police Arvind Gawas said they have begun the stringent drive which will further intensify during the upcoming tourist season when lakhs of tourists throng the State.
“We will stress on a drive against drunk driving during the tourist season. Every traffic official will be equipped with alcometers,” he told Herald. As on date, the department has a total 35 alcometers while 12 more would be added in the next few weeks.
With a go-ahead from the government, the department would now recommend suspension of licenses and/or permits of a drunk driver to the RTO. As of now, it was applicable only during fatal or serious accidents.
“We were waiting for the awareness to be spread to the people. With awareness created by the media, we will not only impose penalty if a driver is caught driving drunk as per the MV Act but also recommend his/her suspension of licence to the issuing authority,” Gawas said.
The Traffic Cell has requested the RTO to suspend 221 licenses and permits of all those involved in fatal and serious accidents, some of which also include drunk driving cases. But what has been the response? No marks for guessing. Not a single licence has been suspended.
