There’s nothing more tragic than the death of a person who set out to right a social wrong and paid for it with life. To read Sampat Sonawane’s awful end is to be reminded, yet again, of the utter chaos, unruliness and danger that lurks on every street of Mumbai. And to realise that the authorities – in this case, the traffic police – have not yet woken up to the many hazards for pedestrians at a time when cities around the world celebrate car-free or vehicle-free days.
Sampat Sonawane, 44, was a decoration maker, a resident of Nehru Nagar suburb, a family man, and a pedestrian who was crossing the road to his house on the night of September 10. He was dead six days later from a head injury he received that night. He was pummelled by two men riding a motorbike on the wrong side of his street, men he had shouted at for breaching road rules.
The bikers Rahul Babriya and Anuj Bansude, 23 and 22 years old respectively, have since been arrested and charged with murder. Babriya, the police told the media, “got angry after Sonawane pulled him up … in a fit of rage, he hurled abuses at Sonawane, parked his vehicle at a distance and walked back to smack Sonawane”. A crowd presumably watched.
Sonawane collapsed, was taken to Rajawadi Hospital, and discharged. The following day he felt giddy, returned to the Hospital, was asked to get a head scan but the scanner wasn’t working and was referred to Sion Hospital. Two days later, even as an MRI showed head injuries, he fainted. On September 16, he was dead. What must his family be thinking? How would they come to terms with such a death?
Babriya is not alone; there are thousands like him who have inexplicably taken to riding on the wrong side of a road. This is a relatively new menace in Mumbai. Bikers on the wrong side, riding along the pavement or on it, not only put their own lives at risk but also endanger those of others, especially those of pedestrians who are forced to use that space between vehicles and pavements. And when they are ticked off by Good Samaritans, they turn indignant, even belligerent.
Mumbai Police’s traffic department doesn’t seem to treat this wrong-side riding as a serious crime yet, serious enough to warrant large-scale nabbing and in-your-face education campaigns. Bikers should not need to be educated that they ought to use only their side of the road, as other vehicles do, and not cross the divider because it is convenient or faster or gives them the thrill to ride in the face of oncoming traffic. But this obvious education is the need of the hour; the police ought to do it.
There have been half a dozen incidents of road rage recorded in the last year involving bikers who assaulted other drivers. Of course, at a macro level, this is an issue of limited space and a burgeoning number of vehicles. In the decade up to 2016-17, the number of two-wheelers in Mumbai doubled to reach a staggering 18 lakh in January this year. The density of bikes per kilometre increased by a breath-taking 64% in the last six years, according to transport department statistics. There are far too many bikes and not enough road space – a breakdown of the city’s skewed pro-private transport policies.
But the way around this certainly is not for bikers – well, some bikers – to circumvent rules and create a bike lane on the wrong or opposite side. Only the strictest of punishments handed down immediately is likely to make a difference if at all, to limit this menace before it gets out of hand.
The traffic department will cite a lack of resources but that is not an excuse. They have to find ways around it. Let Sonawane’s death not go in vain. As international cities celebrate the car-free day this week, pedestrianise their streets, sign up for Vision Zero to eliminate traffic deaths, the least Mumbai can expect is that vehicle users, bikers really, stick to their side of the street.
First Published: Sep 19, 2018 20:06 IST
