The city's roads are not your racing tracks

The man was going to the promenade for a jog, when a car came racing out of nowhere and ran over him while he was crossing the road

Speed kills might sound like a tired old cliché, but it does have a grain of truth. This paper carried a story on Monday that most readers would have read and gone: that could have been me. A speeding car knocked down and killed a 55-year-old man on Marine Drive on Sunday morning.

The man was going to the promenade for a jog, when a car came racing out of nowhere and ran over him while he was crossing the road. The driver fled the scene, leaving the victim bleeding on the road. He eventually succumbed to his injuries.

Notch that down to yet another accident on Marine Drive, a killer stretch that has claimed so many lives. The straight and relatively traffic-free road in the wee hours poses such a temptation for drivers to put the pedal to metal.

It is time to get much more aggressive against rash drivers, especially on stretches like Marine Drive and Worli Sea Face, where the open road makes drivers think they are in a Formula One race. The no-speeding message must be put up at regular intervals all through the stretch. An ad agency can be roped in for creative, hard-hitting messages that hammer the point home in an effective, though not preachy way.

Youngsters need to be counselled to uphold an absolute premium on human life. A rush of adrenaline, a sudden burst of speed, and they could end up destroying a family forever, take away a spouse, leave a child without a father or mother.

The gravity of these consequences need to be drilled into the youth by family, colleges and motor training schools. The 'do not drink and drive' campaign has yielded encouraging results. Now, a no-speeding campaign may be required, with every part of society contributing to it, to bring down road accident injuries and fatalities.

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