SIES Skyline – Drunk Driving : A License to Kill!

‘SIES Skyline’…a publication of SIES College of Arts, Science and Commerce, Sion (W)

DRUNK DRIVING : A LICENSE TO KILL…!!

  “Drunken driving: 146 netted in 2 days” 

 “Two critical in Mumbai drunk driving accident” 

                                                          “Mumbai’s New Year shame: 860 drunk drivers held” 

These are some of the headlines you probably start your day with, glaring at the newspaper and end up cursing the drunk driver and eventually forgetting it. Yeah! That’s the reality which is caused due to the short memory and limited attention span of the people reading it.

People consider drunk driving a mistake. My dear fellow, it isn’t a mistake. It’s a CRIME and mind you, a GRUESOME one. And why so? You can forgive a mistake and accept it as a part and parcel of your life, whereas with Drunk Driving, you cannot pardon off anyone. The reason being pretty simple that a life once taken cannot be reversed!

Drunk driving isn’t forgivable. It’s irresponsible and plain stupid. By justifying and condoning it, the problem will only worsen. We lose more and more people every day because they were involved in an automobile accident where a drunk driver didn’t realize that it was his responsibility not to drive when he was intoxicated. Now the question lies in front of us how many lives are we willing to sacrifice before we wake up and realize it? I hope we all wake up soon.

Drunk driving is wrong, and it should be treated that way. It isn’t just your life we are dealing with, but everyone who is unfortunate enough to be on the same road.

We list down two cases of Drunk Driving where some really reckless and irresponsible behavior of a few people took the lives of some innocent people with whatsoever no fault of theirs.

1.                  Indian-origin US national Nooriya Haveliwala, 29-year-old beautician, who was also under the influence of drugs, is accused of ramming her SUV (Honda CRV) into six persons, killing two of them – Dinanath Shinde (46), a Police Sub-Inspector and Afzal Ibrahim (35), a biker.

Mangled Remains of Drunk Driving

The accident took place in south Mumbai on the intervening night of January 29-30, 2010 when police were conducting a drive against drunken driving.

Haveliwala was arrested and booked under IPC Section 304 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder), Motor Vehicles Act and Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act (NDPS). She was later released on bail.

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2.                  On Nov 12, 2006, Alistair Pereira, the son of a rich businessman, was driving under the influence of alcohol on Carter Road area of Bandra, north-west Mumbai, and ran over 15 labourers sleeping on the pavement, killing seven of them.

On Jan 12 this year, the Hon. Supreme Court upheld a Bombay High Court verdict awarding him a three-year jail sentence.

Alistair Periera’s victims!

According to the Hon. Supreme Court verdict, Pereira, who had only served one month in jail by then, will now have to serve three years of imprisonment.

The apex court bench of Justice R. M. Lodha and Justice J.S. Kehar cancelled the bail bond of Pereira and directed him to surrender.

Pereira, who holds an engineering diploma, was convicted by a sessions court April 13, 2007, which awarded him six months imprisonment and imposed a fine of Rs.5 lakh that was to be paid to the victims’ families.

Pereira challenged the conviction before the Bombay High Court, which Sep 6, 2007, confirmed his conviction and enhanced the sentence to three years. It also criticized Mumbai police for slackness in the investigation and taking too much time to submit its report.

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Above what you read is just a small representation of what is currently prevailing in the society.

At SIES SKYLINE, we hereby bring this concurrent menace, which our society is ridden off, to your notice and also we wish to have your opinions and feedbacks on the same.

So here is what YOU need to do:

i.  Comment on this note and share your views about this issues.

ii.  Share this note on your Facebook TIMELINE/WALL and ask for people to comment and present their views           on it.

ii.  Highlight a few possible measures to tackle this growing problem and put it down over here.

iii.  And last but not the least, EVERYONE NEEDS TO TAKE A VOW THAT

“AS A RESPONSIBLE HUMAN BEING, I VOW TO NEVER DRIVE AFTER DRINKING AND WOULD ALSO DISCOURAGE OTHERS FROM DOING SO.” 

The comments / feedbacks voicing independent opinions and as selected by the moderators would feature in the Debut Issue of SIES SKYLINE. 

DO NOT DRINK AND DRIVE