November 2015

THE RIGHT LINE

For the last eight years I have been writing about how the traffic situation in our country is getting from bad to worse. The total disregard for traffic rules finally caught up with me. This is the first time I am writing my editorial from my bed at home. On 28 September 2015, I was riding a motorcycle and going through a crossroads with a traffic signal, which was green for my side of the traffic when I arrived at the junction. As I carried on, a car coming from the right jumped the signal. After hard braking and swerving to the right I hit the rear of the Swift. At the time of impact my speed must not have been more than 10 km/h as I did not have a single scratch or a burn mark apart from a broken tibia and fibula.

Things got even more interesting in the evening when I was lying in the hospital bed waiting for the surgery the next day when a policeman came to take my statement. The first thing he said was that it was my fault because I had hit the rear of the car regardless of the traffic signal. Once you hit the rear of a vehicle, it is your fault. According to him, I should have stopped. Then he also went on to say that you should not stop on red as somebody might hit you from the back. During the time the statement was being taken by the policeman, a friend of mine, Meher Pudumjee, who is the chairperson of Thermax, was present and was in a state of shock on hearing what the policeman had to say.