When Indians Can Follow Road Safety Rules Abroad Then Why Not In India? Bombay High Court In Accident Case

When Indians traveling abroad can follow the rules and regulations pertaining to traffic there, then why can't they follow the road rules here in India, the Bombay High Court recently questioned while disposing of a road accident compensation case, wherein a priest suffering from Parkinson died after being hit by a Thane Municipal Transport Corporation (TMTC) bus.Single-judge Justice Jitendra Jain expressed displeasure with Indians failing to adhere to road safety norms while crossing the roads and even the failure to follow traffic rules by motorists. "The pedestrian of this country should be careful in following the rules and regulations. It is generally observed that the people cross the road ignoring the signals, which results into accidental death or injury. It is high time that we as a responsible citizen, follow the rules and regulations while crossing the road and by following signals. Merely because, there are no vehicles coming from either side, people should not cross the road, when the signals clearly show that they are not supposed to cross the road," Justice Jain observed in the April 8 order. The judge further underlined that it was also important that the vehicles should not break the signals, though such tendency of breaking the signals has come down but still and more particularly people driving two wheeler do not follow the signal rules and regulations and at times this has resulted into death and injury of not only the persons driving two wheeler but also other innocent people. Therefore, the traffic police, the judge said though doing commendable job, should take strict action against the people driving two wheeler and violating the signal rules.In his 6-page order, Justice Jain said that it is high time that Indians inculcate within themselves the civic sense which we all have to follow without anyone compelling us to follow, and suggested that we should learn from the developed countries as to how the people driving the vehicle and also how people crossing the road behave in those countries. "Even we as an Indian, when we travel abroad we follow the rules and regulations of the foreign country while crossing and driving. I do not see any reason why we should not follow the rules and regulations of our country while we return and are staying in India. There cannot be any justification for not following the same," Justice Jain said. The judge further pointed out that often elders and parents violate such rules while driving and crossing and when they are accompanied by children, these children, who are the future of the country, observe the behaviour of their parents and elders and follow and adopt the same illegalities. "Therefore, it is the moral duty and obligation of the elders and the parents to follow rules and regulations while driving and crossing so that the children learn these basic civic sense from their parents of following rules and regulations rather than, learning how to violate the rules and regulations. It is rightly said children adopt quickly what they observe," the judge observed. These observations were made while hearing the First Appeal filed by the dependants of one Satish Joshi who was suffering from Parkinson disease and was also partially paralytic. He was knocked down by a TMTC bus on November 9, 2012 while he was trying to cross the road near Aradhana Talkies, Naupada in Thane. He died on March 16, 2013 i.e. after four months of the accident. A Motor Accident Claims Tribunal (MACT) had on April 21, 2016 passed an order granting compensation of Rs 13.23 lakhs in favour of the claimants, who were the dependants of the deceased Joshi. The dependants argued that the Tribunal wrongly considered the income of the deceased as Rs 8,000 and instead must have considered it to be Rs 12,000. Justice Jain, however, assessed his income to be Rs 10,000 as there was no evidence to show the exact amount he earned as a priest. The judge, further agreed with the Tribunal on the point of attributing 50 per cent negligence to Joshi for crossing the road not at a signal.The judge noted that Joshi was a Parkinson disease patient and was suffering from paralysis, which makes the movement of a person slow as compared to a normal person. "In my view, the deceased should have been accompanied by some person, and more particularly when he had to cross a busy road. He could have taken the help of a bystander or the general public to assist him to cross the road. It is also important to note that the spot of incident was not a place where there are signals. A pedestrian should try to cross the road only at the signal by following signal rules. Therefore, to some extent the negligence certainly is attributable to the deceased," the judge held. Therefore, the judge enhanced the compensation from Rs 13.23 lakhs to Rs 15.15 lakhs, while observing, "I bring an end to this matter with the hope that progress is made by the citizens of this country on this issue (of adhering to road safety...

When Indians Can Follow Road Safety Rules Abroad Then Why Not In India? Bombay High Court In Accident Case

Narsi Benwal

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