Road rage cases: ‘Let someone go ahead, so you can stay alive’

On August 19 Yogesh Gaikwad was flung 50 feet through the air by employer Satish Sharma on the ThaneAmbernath Road The 43yearold was filling in for Sharmarsquos regular driver and had barely been on duty for 12 days Gaikwadrsquos crushed collarbone has been fitted with plates in three places and three fingers on his left hand are brokenColabaresident Sharma had gone to Ambernath to resolve things with his estranged wife The next day he decided to take his son back home which his father Brindeshwar opposed staunchly He took off in his black Tata Safari dragging Satishrsquos son into the back seat Gaikwad was behind the wheel as it unravelled ldquoBrindeshwar followed us in a white Fortuner cut us off and braked He got out and yanked Satish out of the carrdquo Sharma tells us over the phoneTraffic personnel during a Yoga and Pranayam session at the Byculla Traffic Training Institute PicAditi HaralkarGaikwad quickly alighted too as Sharmarsquos cousin joined the confrontation which escalated into a melee ldquoI was calming things down when Sir Sharma snatched the car keys from me and got into the car All I remember next is the car coming at mehellip I had no time to react as I was flung in the air and blacked outrdquoHis first thought when he came to while lying on the road was what his familyrsquos life would be if he didnrsquot survive this An autorickshaw driver and onlookers took Gaikwad to the hospital The video of him being flung in air went viral on social media and made it to most news channelsNitish Koppikar has been using dash cams for the last six years and swears by them PicNimesh DaveGaikwadrsquos medical bills have mounted to R6 lakhs for two surgeries ldquoThe Sharma family has refused to pay the billsrdquo he says ldquoand my 85yearold father is not in a position to go to the Ambernath police station to keep following up my case I have two children a wife and a senior parent to support If it was not for the rickshaw driver I donrsquot know who would have taken me to the hospital People seemed least bothered about mehelliprdquo Gaikwad lives in Badlapurrsquos Ramesh NagarIndiarsquos flaring tempers and fretting nerves on road were documented by Ford Motors Company in 2021 The Ford Cartesy Survey found that 60 per cent of motorists experience high anxiety due to trafficinduced issues A little over 1500 drivers from six metros Delhi Mumbai Bangalore Kolkata Chennai and Hyderabad participated in the studyAnagha Pullangotte traffic psychologist HyderabadMumbai ranked number four in its ldquoObliviousrdquo list with 21 per cent of respondents saying they were preoccupied while driving and felt they lacked traffic knowhow to drive in bumpertobumper trafficThe most recent case of road rage occured in Malad last Saturday when an autorickshaw overtook Akash Maeen and his wife Lavina who were on a bike nearly grazing them in the process Nine to 10 autorickshaw drivers have been arrested for Maeenrsquos death due to fatal wounds as a result of the ensuing altercation Not many knew about the incident until the disturbing video surfaced on Monday morning It shows a mob stomping on Maeen at Maladrsquos Daftari Road even as his mother Deepali tries to shelter him from the blowsYogesh Gaikwad in the hospital immediately after the accidentDespite repeated attempts to reach the family we did not receive a response until this story went to printOn Reddit a new thread began Ambernath Road Rage SUV Driver Drags Man After Knocking Him Down Takes UTurn and Rams Into Another Car Different POV Comments range from revoking Sharmarsquos licence to deteriorating respect for law and order ldquoHe should be issued a permanent jail sentence and mandatory mental health session and therapyrdquo says one userNitish Koppikar PicNimesh DaveIn data revealed by Mumbai RTOrsquos last year around 20000 applicants failed the driving test in 2022 after the Transport ministry made it more thorough Anupam Dubey runs an RTOapproved motor training school in Borivli west Devansh Motor Training School where aside from the technical skill he also coaches students on mental resilience and emotion managementldquoThe first thing we tell trainees is to keep a cool headrdquo he says ldquoWhen someone honks like a maniac we tell them to let them pass by lsquoLearn to let someone go ahead so you can stay aliversquo I tell themrdquo says Dubey ldquoMost people donrsquot train at a driving school they get basic lessons from family and friends and begin to drive like they were born behind the wheelrdquoAnupam Dubey Proprietor Devansh Motor Training SchoolDubey observes that the young crop of aspirant drivers have not clocked the required hours they need to show the RTO officer while appearing for the test ldquoWhile even 21 days is not enough at least driving schools ensure you log in that many daysrdquo he says ldquoMy major concern is the temperament of young drivers who have no patience or are hellbent on not letting anyone take overrdquoThis apathy reflected in the Ford study 53 per cent of respondents confessed to not making way for emergency vehicles such as ambulances and fire trucks while 40 per cent of drivers and commuters displayed the weakest demonstration of ideal behaviour on the road They are characterised as possessive impulsive preoccupied with work or family commitments and lacking knowledge of road rules and safety guidelinesRoad safety workshop being conducted with fresh inducted traffic copsldquoMost cases of road rage happen when someone crosses that invisible linerdquo says Anagha Pullangotte a traffic psychologist and mental health practitioner from Hyderabad ldquoA gesture or a word takes the incident from a verbal altercation to a physical exchange It might be saying something like ldquoF offrdquo or showing the middle fingerrdquoThe specific triggers are what the Indian Institute of Management IMM Hyderabad graduate is studying in this new branch of psychology ldquoI noticed that there is not much research available on thisrdquo Pullangotte says ldquoand though we are still in the middle of the study we can see that the thresholds for trigger words are different across states due to differences in culture For example what might be normal to say on the streets of Delhi might be a trigger in Mumbai and with migration towards metros being at its highest these alterations are only getting frequentrdquoNational Crime Records Bureaursquos NCRB 2021 data shows that deaths by accidents overtake deaths by murders At least 43499 people were killed in hitandrun cases of rash driving while comparatively 29272 people were murdered in separate incidents across the countryThe Mumbai Traffic Police has been training its personnel to handle frayed nerves with nerves of steel ldquoEvery officer is trained to keep their cool when they see a situation going out of handrdquo says Senior Police Inspector Traffic Mubarak Shaikh who works as an instructor at the Mumbai Traffic Training Institute at Byculla The officers undergo two weeks of training in emotion regulation via Pranayam and Yoga bolstered by tactical knowledge of when to call in reinforcements ldquoEvery zone has traffic monitoring vans so when we get tipped off about an altercation we send these But if the situation heats up more with the potential of a mob gathering we radio the area DCP as well as city policerdquoShaikh observes that extreme incidents like the ones involving Maeen and Gaikwad are more frequent in North Mumbai and the western suburbs ldquoThe population rise in these areas due to cheap housing has outnumbered our personnel strengthrdquo she adds Many Mumbaikars have been taking steps to insulate themselves with measures such as dashcams Gaikwad himself is grateful to the passersby who captured his ordeal on phone ldquoNo one can say I was lying about how it happenedrdquo he saysNitish Koppikar has a fleet of three cars to deliver medical equipment to hospitals and clinics ldquoAround six years agordquo says the Malad resident ldquomany of my drivers began to get into accidents and I wanted to verify whether it was for genuine reaons or they were being negligentrdquo He invested in dash cams for his fleet and they have come handy twice ldquoAt Charkop a man driving behind me on his scooter didnrsquot notice a pool of water and skid almost touching my car He blamed me for braking too quicklyhellipbut as soon as he saw the dashcams he shut up and went his wayrdquo says KoppikarIn another incident at Kandivli a drunk biker crashed onto the road dead in front of Koppikarrsquos car ldquoWhen he came to argue with me I could smell the alcohol on his breath and I told him that I have video evidence of what happened He too went off without much protestrdquo In both cases Koppikar feels the other motorists could have manipulated the situation to force him to cough up money ldquoWhile you need a very highend camera to capture licence plate numbers even a basic one deters false claims Not many people know of this technology and how it can help them even with its limitationsrdquo he addsThe common man only recently heard about dashcams when the first accident on Atal Setu was captured by onemdasha car flipped several times and came to a halt in early January this yearDoctors estimate it will take Gaikwad at least six months to recover fully with no certainty of degree of mobility ldquoI drive OlaUber cabsrdquo he says ldquobut now I will have to see just how much I will be able to dohellip or if I am do anything at allhelliprdquo We canrsquot help but think about what Australian journalist Tom Vanderbilt wrote in his book Traffic Most crashes after all happen on dry roads on clear sunny days to sober driversrdquo53 37Respondents confessed to not making way for emergency vehicles such as ambulances and fire trucks