Herald: How serious you think drunk driving is in the tourist state of Goa?
Adv Jose Peter: Very. Though it is limited to the coastal belt and (more) on long weekends. The hospital records will tell you all that you wish to know.
Herald: Have you personally come across any such incident? If yes, details.
Adv Jose Peter: No, personal experience. Though during my own drinking days I did lots of crazy drunken driving both on bikes and behind the steering wheel. As a matter of fact my last drink which was on 21/9/1984, I was dead drunk, riding my motorcycle full speed down the Calangute/Saligao highway. Well, I am alive to tell that tale, and for which I thank God whom I never believed in till that night.
Herald: Do you believe police and RTO officials’ efforts to carry out the drive against drunken driving are enough?
Adv Jose Peter: The problem with our society is that we always like to look outwards for answers, sort of playing the blame game. We just cannot take a hard serious look into ourselves and say the rot, if any, starts here. The police should start with their own kind before they begin to book others with the breathalyzers and all that jazz. How many cops do we know who have come forward and admitted to themselves and others that they have a drinking problem? Yet, we find them at nearly every police station reeking of booze, and very often just short of drunk. The same is with the RTO, the lawyers, the judges, the doctors, the priests, the many other organizations who have the problem in their very midst. Let each one start to look inwards and clean up the rot that is besetting each of these ‘virtuous’ groups. All it needs is just a couple from each of these set of police, RTO officials, judges, lawyers, priests and many others, and we will soon be on the right road.
Herald: Do you think people in general are also responsible not to adhere to laws?
Adv Jose Peter: People here are the same as in other places and countries, they will run riot if given a chance, and if one hits the right chords. Our folks are not as bad as many of their counterparts in other parts of the world. But I find it hard to digest that our reaction to such a problem of ‘booze’ is: Prohibition. We have seen it fail in our own recent history, and we know it will only succeed in increasing corruption through hafta. Yet, we are hell-bent on kicking ourselves once more, if one hears the rumours going around.
