It is now very apparent that the ban on liquor outlets within 500 metres either side of National and State highways is incomprehensible to the common man. Maybe the collective minds of the Supreme Court can enlighten and guarantee us mere mortals that drivers on the highway won’t take a detour of around 501 mts. or more and excessively drink themselves silly before hitting the roads again first and maybe some trees, animals, vehicles and human beings later with a vengeance!
The ban will also ensure that motorists embarking on long and arduous journeys will ‘tank’ up literally and figuratively well before they hit the highways or carry a few large pegs for the proverbial “road to hell”. Perhaps, an alternative worth looking at is directing the Excise dept. to charge a fee of Rs 100 per year from the identified outlets that will be affected and use the revenue to equip a healthy number of Highway patrols with ‘breathalysers’ and ask them to do their job of checking erratic drivers with the rider that any driver caught above the permissable level will compulsorily have to first ‘chill’ in the nearest ‘cooler’ for 24 hours and have his or her license impounded for 1 year.
If at all there is a mishap, the patrolmen on duty in the concerned sector should immediately be interrogated/investigated for dereliction of duty. In this way, both the driver and the policemen are on notice, and I am pretty sure the affected outlets will be more than happy and willing to be a part of the justice system. Also, just a thought. If drunken driving is a cause of fatal accidents and hence sale of alcohol has to be banned thus affecting the livelihood of those selling it, pot-holed roads are an even bigger cause of accidents -both fatal and debilitating and hence should also be banned and the authorities responsible for such pathetic roads should also lose their livelihood. But as Virender Sehwag would say and the authorities would probably agree, they didn’t build the roads – the low quality bitumen did!
It seems like if the CBI was termed a ‘caged parrot’ the Supreme Court is turning out to be a ‘pet’ one.
