A car involved in a collision with a scooter that killed three students at Nedumbassery in Kochi on Sunday
Another teenager, a minor, managed to drive his car from Aluva to Cheranelloor on Oct 25, causing the accident that killed a wayside eatery owner. On Sept 9, police announced that police clearance certificates and ID cards would be made mandatory for bus crews within 15 days. More than 2,000 applications were received and verification began, but two months on, the matter remains unresolved.
Police should conduct combing operations in targeted areas every evening, covering each and every road, so that people cannot guess where checking would take place, he said. The special drives since announced across the state are a knee-jerk response; experts say consistent, periodic checks would do more than inspections announced after incidents. Nearly a dozen such incidents were reported in Aug and Sept alone.
The crash came just two weeks after another fatal accident, yet it caught the police off guard. The rash driving went unchecked until that crash, and even that did not put the police on alert. Though disciplinary action followed over official lapses, a systematic preventive plan against rash driving is still missing. “When people see such heavy deployment every other day, things will change. The city police’s handling of traffic violations had already come under scrutiny over a spike in violent incidents involving private bus crews, besides continued rash and negligent driving.