Sunday, December 20, 2009
How to deal with a car accident in India
“Its all about who punches whom first”, opined my brother in law as he drove us to the Hyderabad Airport in his family’s new Fiat Lenia. It doesn’t matter whose fault it was. If you’re the first guy to get out of your car, walk over to the other guy, and land a left hook, you’re making the point that you weren’t the guilty party. And with that you begin the argument on superior footing. Perhaps your fit of rage may convince the other guy it was his fault, even if neither party is quite sure. And that way you can start asking for insurance or cash compensation before the other guy gets a hold of his senses after the shock of a wreck.
The discussion began, as i wondered aloud about the sense in buying a nice new ride with law enforcement and car insurance enforcement so poor in India and getting your doors scratched as common as a power outage in New Delhi.
Car insurance isn’t as simple in India as it is (usually is) in the United States. With the rule of law not enforced as well, there’s no guarantee you’ll get compensated if someone else dings your new ride, or that the offender will even be punished if they don’t have the money or the insurance to cover the damage they’ve done to your vehicle. So, essentially you try your best to not hit anyone else, and to stay out of the way of the ignorant drivers that may be swerving into your lane when they’re not supposed to. And you pray to the lord that you don’t have to deal with the argument that follows most car accidents.
Option A (I don’t have hard evidence, but perhaps 5% of the time): You get into a wreck with another party that has insurance and is half-way civilized. You can agree on whose fault it was, exchange insurance information and be on your way. The assumption being that you’ll call your insurance companies and the offending party’s insurance will pay for the damage to the car/health of the other participant in the accident. You get your dinged car fixed in 4-5 days and are back on the road. The police may or may not need to get involved, your discretion, just like in the States.
Option B (Far more likely): You’re rear ended by an underage truck driver from a remote village in Bihar who was busy getting a handjob from the temptress he picked up for a cool 200 bucks ($4) on the ride to New Delhi while downing a full-sized bottle of Kingfisher Beer (the local favorite) and driving his rickety truck into the bumper of your brand stinking new ride. The man has no car registration paperwork or driver’s license. He’s probably never even heard of car insurance.
Firstly, he could just turn out to be a thug. In that case, having a civilized discussion is out of the question. The more buddies he has with him, the worse your odds of getting out of there in good health. In such situations, travelling with your own goons is highly advisable to make it a fair fight.
Perhaps he’s not got thuggish tendencies and is instead apologetic. You can ask him for his insurance paperwork. If he has none, you can make a rough estimate of the damage to your car and ask him to compensate you on the spot. Assuming again that he doesn’t have any money, since he spent his last 1000 ($20) at the brothel, the liquor store and gas station, you can drag him to the nearby police station.
Lucky for Mr. underage truck driver, the cops really don’t give a shit. They might offer to “register a case”, in which case for some strange reason they seem to want to impound both the offending truck AND your new ride. While you put your life on hold, your vehicle may just sit at the police station indefinitely, until the slacker cop gets around to registering your case, or what seems more likely, you get sick of waiting and just make a deal with the truck driver so you can get the hell out of there in time. The cops asking for a “car release fee” to get your car out of the station is also likely.
Said deal with a truck driver could mean a payment of the only 500 bucks ($10) the truck driver can muster, while you’ve sustained 40,000 bucks ($800) of damage.
The fact that the offending driver doesn’t face any financial or jail-time consequences, means that the discomfort he’s supposed to feel to deter him from future shenanigans on the road, never happens. He’s back out on the road, without facing any of the consequences, and soon enough he’ll be ramming into another unfortunate soul’s brand stinking new ride.
Administering discomfort, or social justice i suppose, is the state’s responsibility. Individual citizens haven’t the time nor the money to hire the goons to teach the young kid a lesson, do they?
I’m also learning that its “illegal” for anyone to drive around without third party liability insurance. I’m probably not far off in guessing that more people don’t have Liability Insurance, than do.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment