No let-up in road rage cases; ‘errant’ driver hits motorist

Hameed Ashraf | NT

Bengaluru: With more than one crore vehicles crowding its roads, Bengaluru has already earned the title as the 'Most Traffic Congested City' in the world. People here either witness or in the worst case, get involved in road rage incidents every day.

After a series of such reports, another video related to road rage is doing the rounds on Twitter. In the video, an autorickshaw driver is seen thrashing a car driver after their vehicles touched each other while driving on a road near the Ecospace signal in Bellandur Traffic Police Station limits. It was later revealed that the incident took place on Tuesday.

The video, captured by a dash camera of another vehicle, shows the car brushing the autorickshaw, which itself is being driven negligently. Flying into a rage, the driver of the auto blocks the car and gets off his vehicle.

Approaching the car, the autorickshaw driver can be seen thrashing the car driver continuously in public before continuing on his way. After the video went viral on Twitter, several netizens tagged the Bengaluru Traffic Police (BTP) and other officials asking them to take strict action against the autorickshaw driver for the violence. The police replied that the registration number plate of the autorickshaw is unclear in the video.

However, the cops said that the car driver has been traced and they are currently taking his statement. Since the start of the year, every other day, there have been reports of motorists getting into road rage incidents. A 71-year-old man was dragged for around 2 km by a youth on a scooter. A man jumped on the bonnet of a car driven by a woman blaming her for having hit his vehicle.

Apart from these cases, there were several reports of gang members attempting to extort people by faking accidents. Experts say that environmental factors such as crowded roads, motorists ignoring traffic rules, displaced anger and high life stresses are linked to road rage.

“In fact, a range of behaviours stem from driving when angry, including everything from honking, yelling abuses and making hostile gestures, through to tailgating or dangerous manoeuvres on the road, and ultimately getting out of the car to carry out verbal attacks or physical violence,” an expert said.