Nonchalant attitude, easy getaways and a toothless law have left the lives of commoners of Delhi at the mercy of juvenile drivers who are often “remorseless” after committing a crime as grievous as mowing down a person on the road.
In the wake of the Mercedes hit-and-run case, a Delhi Police report shows as many as 1,916 juvenile drivers were issued challans in 2015. An upward trend in the number of juvenile offenders also came to fore when the report showed that 76 juvenile drivers were challaned in 2013 and 356 were challaned in 2014. Meanwhile, this year till March 31, 169 such juvenile drivers have been issued challans for violating traffic norms.
Over the past few years, the increasing incidents of juveniles taking law in their own hands have proved to be a persistent problem for the Delhi Traffic Police. Attributing the problem of flouting rules to the indifference in “attitude of the affluent families towards their children”, psychologists point towards several factors which lead the teenagers into breaking the norms.
Talking to Millennium Post, Shubhra Sanyal, a criminal psychologist and a professor at Amity University said: “Attitude of the affluent families towards their wards plays a pivotal role in leading them towards breaking laws. Other factors include lack of values, lack of positive thinking and indifference towards society.”
“Aggression is also one of the major factors that plays a role when it comes to underage drivers. The fact ingrained in them is that they can get away from the law through the power of money,” she said.
“The charges under which these juveniles are issued challans are compoundable. Under Section 5 of the Motor Vehicles Act, punishment for violations is Rs 1,000 and in a few cases, three months’ imprisonment,” said a senior Traffic official.
“The feeling that ‘no one can touch me’ overrides a juvenile’s senses which is further reinforced in cases where parents of the juveniles instead of getting angry shower support for them,” Sanyal added.
According to one of the relatives of Sidhartha Sharma, the 32-year-old business executive who was mowed down by a juvenile driving a Mercedes in Civil Lines on Monday night, the juvenile was remorseless. Explaining this reaction, Sanyal said: “It was the lack of guilt in the underage driver which surfaced in front of the victim’s family. This, coupled with remorseless, is part of aggression which is an unfound emotion.”