Driving on the wrong side……Shubhashis Gangopadhyay
A higher compensation to the victims of such accidents would prevent people from taking wrong-side short cuts
A higher compensation to the victims of such accidents would prevent people from taking wrong-side short cuts
A woman along with her family was coming in a car and got hit, head-on, by a truck coming from the other side. The truck was travelling on the wrong side of the road. The woman was in the car with her husband and two daughters. Her husband and one of the daughters died in the accident. She hit the headlines when she sued for more than a crore of rupees. I know a person who walks with a limp for more than ten years now and is intermittently under insufferable leg pains. He got into a head-on collision with a Tempo Traveller while travelling in his car. I would presume that in both cases the driver of the offending vehicle was not highly educated, since educated people usually do not take up jobs as truck drivers. Last Sunday, I saw two cars speeding down the wrong side of the road near my home. One was being driven by a very stylish lady wearing very fashionable sunglasses; the car following her was being driven by a young man who did not look like a paid driver after all drivers are usually on leave on Sundays. The point I am trying to make is that the trucks were on the wrong side of the road not necessarily because the drivers were uneducated; it is a practice followed by many in Delhi and Haryana, at least.
The main reason cited by those who drive their cars on the wrong side of the road is the cost of petrol. Instead of going a longish distance to make a U-turn, they prefer to go a shorter distance on the wrong side to get to wherever they have to go to so that they can save that bit on petrol. Once again, this reason is not specific to poor drivers who ply their own trucks, or brash call centre cabbies. Very rich people, with flashy cars, also save money by doing this. Everyone gets away with it because I have never seen any policeman pull up anybody even when this violation occurs in front of them. Somehow, the fact that someone is saving money by doing this makes it all right. This logic is, of course, not applicable anywhere else. For instance, I am very sure that everyone who drives on the wrong side also feels that stealing is a crime even if the thief steals to feed his family. And, they would also agree that the victim of a theft seldom suffers a permanent damage in the same way that the accident victims of head-on collisions do.
I guess the main reason for this suspension of logic is that more people drive on the wrong side of the road than commit theft. Or, theft is committed exclusively by the poor. It is this same lack of logic that prevents us from rubbing shoulders with thieves but gives us a great sense of pride to be seen around highly corrupt but rich people.
The courts decision regarding the compensation claim made by the woman who lost her husband and child could, in a way, determine how we change our attitude to driving on the wrong side. If a large amount of compensation is granted by the court, a series of things may happen, one leading to the next. First, I expect more victims or their families to file compensation suits. Second, since a precedent would have been set, more perpetrators would be asked to cough up money. Third, because they have to spend a lot, most people will desist from driving on the wrong side of the road. This will, of course, have significant ripple effects. Saabs and Memsaabs will have to cross roads on foot and, maybe, they will spend a bit more on petrol. On the other hand, less innocent people will die and road travel for those who follow rules will become a bit more smooth.
The only argument against large compensations is that people anxious to avoid the consequences of causing an accident on the wrong side of the road will try to bribe their way out of it. In other words, they will bribe the police to write false reports about the accident and, hence, this will increase the level of corruption among the police. For the moment, let us forget the implicit assumption in this line of reasoning the police are little children waiting to be led astray by bribe-giving adults. Let us, instead, carry the argument a bit further. It is not difficult to argue that the police on the scene of the accident will have a much larger bargaining power than the person who has caused the accident. And so, if the compensation to be paid is high, the police can extract a large bribe. In other words, a larger compensation will mean a larger bribe. The bottom line is that higher compensations increase the costs to the perpetrators. And hence, people will be less inclined to break the law.
Unless drivers are drunk or blind in which case they should not be driving any way people take a deliberate action to move over to the wrong side. They can just as well not do so. And, they are not incidents that result from stupidity (investing money with someone who promises double the market return), illiteracy or lack of education (not being able to read signs like No Free Left written in English) or penury (snatching a chain or picking a pocket to feed ones family). The system intervenes heavily in these cases, while allowing cars on the wrong side of the road. It does not make sense at all.
The author is research director, India Development Foundation