mid day editorial: Plug the loopholes in the system first

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Our front page report about a 35-year-old woman dying in a cab after a crash by an Uber driver who has a history of rash driving and all the travails that have followed for a traumatised family has resulted in widespread outrage.

The woman was killed on June 14, when the Uber cab she was travelling in smashed into a stationary garbage van wrongly parked on Eastern Express Highway near Bhandup. The driver of the cab, Inderjeet Singh Bhatti, should never have been allowed to drive an Uber as he had been penalised twice for speeding just two months before the accident. The family also received calls from insurance agents and lawyers telling them to register a case with the Motor Vehicle Tribunal and demanding 21 per cent of the compensation amount as fees.

We hope the cab company will be hauled up. They need to have a policy for drivers with offences. Why has there been no punitive action on the driver and how could they allow him on the road even with his record of rash driving? If he had been stopped earlier, we could've saved a life. To compound the family's agony, even as they were processing the tragedy, they were told by the police that they could help with an agent who would facilitate third party insurance claims. The agent and his advocate told the family that they would take 21 per cent of the claim amount as fee and even more agents and advocates arrived. How can authorities reveal details about the family? They need to be hauled up if they do so. These are vultures preying and feeding off the tragedy.

The callousness and negligence in this case has certainly reached new depths. Let this case be a prism to what is wrong in the system and plug every gap, bring offenders to book and ensure that grieving families do not endure unbearable torture.

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