25 October,2018 06:01 AM IST | Mumbai | mid-day correspondent
A businessman's son who took a Mercedes Benz for a test drive left a Bandra Worli sea link employee with serious injuries, and made his driver take the rap. The CCTV footage, though, exposed these lies and forced the police to take proper action.
A young man took a Mercedes A-Class out for a test drive with his driver and a showroom employee in tow. Both his chauffeur and the showroom staffer helped cover up the 20-year-old's accident. The youth crashed into an employee after crossing the toll plaza on the sea link. The driver told the police he was at the wheel. Eventually though, the footage showed it was not him, but the businessman's son, who was subsequently arrested and released on bail.
This incident shows the importance of having top class CCTV coverage in the city. We often see that cameras are faulty or the footage is of such poor quality that so called 'coverage' is very poor and nothing can be made out from the images.
It is also vital that young drivers shun speed. The staffer from the showroom has to impress upon those taking the test drive that one has to desist from driving too fast. Speed is always deadly but here, the danger is double, considering that one is driving a vehicle one is not familiar with.
Though every showroom would like to sell, it is a business after all; the employee who accompanies the buyer on a test drive must control the driver. One cannot kowtow to a buyer or be afraid to tell him to stop for fear of losing a potential buyer even when he is driving rashly.
One cannot say that this was possible, in this particular incident, but it is taking a macro view of test drives. Let us be absolutely above board in terms of driver discipline. It is paramount that all rules are adhered to, to cut the number of injuries and fatalities on our roads.
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