Three Pegs and a Drive: How Drunken Drivers Create a Nightmare on the Roads

More than 28 years ago while doing my post graduation in journalism and mass communication in Kerala University, I was returning at around 10 pm after seeing the University Youth Festival. Infact, some of us had the task of reporting it for our lab journal and also a video assignment.After seeing of my friend staying in the University Hostel I walked back home which was hardly two kilometres away. As I was walking on the oneway towards Plamood, a speeding car just hit me and I quickly moved towards the footpath.Initially, I felt something had happened to my leg but luckily there was no injury. The driver obviously had lost control of the vehicle but he stopped the vehicle. I went and asked what happened. The driver said sorry and asked if something happened to me. Meanwhile, his wife said that they are returning from a dinner at Trivandrum Club and that her husband is drunk. I said it was not safe for him to ride back home. Meanwhile, some people crowded around the vehicle. I insisted that he should get out of the vehicle, take rest and have some lemon juice or something, relax and then go. Or alternatively, he could call someone and get the vehicle driven by somebody else. But the people said the family is there in the vehicle and it is late already. Let them go. I wondered at the attitude of the people who let a drunken person drive a vehicle fully knowing that he was not in a stable position. I also wondered how his wife could travel along with their two children when all their life and also of others on the road are in danger.
On another occasion 12 or 13 years ago, I was travelling with my wife and her cousin sister to Nedumangad at night. Suddenly an autorickshaw sprung up from somewhere in the wrong direction and hit our Maruti Alto causing considerable damage to the bonnet and side. The driver was drunk. A few people were chasing him in bikes and they said he had already hit two motorists on the road and when they tried to catch him he was escaping in his auto.We took our vehicle and his vehicle to police station nearby. The Sub Inspector told me that the autorickshaw didn't have insurance and any chance of getting money through a motor vehicles claims tribunal ruling was next to nil. He also told me that several cases are pending against that driver for drunken and rash driving. The inspector said I could get a General Description (GD)copy by confessing that I had no case against the driver and I could submit it to service center and get insurance claimed from the insurer.
On another occassion, I saw a speeding SUV hit an electric post in Plammod junction in Trivandrum quite near to our house. The young driver was obviously drunk. But he just reversed the vehicle and speeded off without making an attempt to look at the damage that was caused. No body could take note of number of the vehicle.
Now as I read reports about a young IAS officer Dr Sriram Venkitaraman who was allegedly drunk and drove a car along with his friend late at night and killing a young journalist Mohammed Basheer of Siraj Daily on the spot, I feel nothing much has changed in people's attitude towards drunken driving. Police has stepped up checking motorists in major cities using breath analysers which has caused a decline in drunken driving but by and large people still take the risk causing hardships not only to themselves but also to innocent motorists or pedestrians on the road.
Drunken driving cannot be curbed by laws alone, the awareness among people is most important.