A 26-year-old man was sentenced to one-year imprisonment for driving rashly on the wrong side of a road and causing the death of an auto-driver.
Officers of the traffic investigation unit, Guindy police station, said a TATA SUMO driven on the wrong side of the road by S. Mathivathanan of Thiruvanmiyur on September 3, 2009 had collided with an autorickshaw near the American School, Taramani. The auto driver Raja was killed. Mathivathanan was charged with offences under Sections 279 (Rash driving or riding on a public way) 304-A (Causing death by negligence) of IPC and Motor Vehicle Act.
S. Balakrishnan VI Metropolitan Magistrate, Egmore said that the prosecution had proved that the accused had been driving the vehicle on the wrong side of road.
Keywords: rash driving, rigorous imprisonment, accident
This type of stricter punishments needs to be enforced. Besides this should be a part of Headline so that it servers as a deterrent for habitual violators.
Just one year RI for a brazen crime like this? No wonder people are so
casual about not stopping at red signals, not wearing helmets etc. What
about the auto-driver's family who is suffering for no fault of the auto
driver? Strange that if he had died by consuming illicit liquor, there
would have been media coverage and compensation from the state!!
The police should step up fining errant drivers. Only then will people learn to obey the law. Right now the police say they are shortstaffed to do such things.The solution is to rope in school and college students from the NSS or NCC to round up errant motorists and have an inspector write out the challan. Do this daily for an hour or two for two months and let's see how people fall in line! Repeat this every few months to reinforce the idea.
It is a shame that the convicted person got only one year of jail time.
He caused a death deliberately and this punishment is a disappointment.
It will not deter others to not drive on the wrong side. Hope somebody
challenges this sentence and gets him the punishment he deserves.
This dangerous attempt happens in the four-lane highways too. Not just
two-wheelers even heavy vehicles and sometimes even by government
vehicles. But there is no highway patrol to control this. RI and
penalties are of no use after precious lives are lost.
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