Pune Porsche crash: Tackle underage drunk driving on a war footing

livemint.com:

culpable since they apparently allowed their underage son to drive their car, a Porsche, knowing full well that he did not have a driving licence as he wasn’t yet eligible for one. Sure, we live in an age where parents have less and less influence over their progeny, especially once they reach their teens. But that does not absolve them of responsibility.

Vehicles, like guns, can be lethal. And alcohol impairs abilities. Indeed, it is not just parents, but society at large that needs to do some soul-searching.

As Reupert A. et al, write in their paper, ‘It Takes a Village to Raise a Child’ in Front Public Health, March 2022, “Even though parents may be a child’s primary caregivers, a family does not exist in a vacuum." Social connectedness or the bonds that people develop, including a sense of belonging and feeling of being cared for, are no less important. Unfortunately, the covid pandemic hurt this ‘social inter-connectedness.’ For almost two years, humans lived almost in isolation, interacting only with close family members.

That sense of isolation, loss of empathy with fellow humans may have scarred many, especially those who spent their formative and turbulent teen years under lockdown conditions. How much of a role did all this play in the horrific accident in Pune? It is hard to say. What is true is that despite the fact that India leads the world in road fatalities, civil society is yet to respond with proactive steps like Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), a non-profit organization that began in the US and now has chapters in Canada and Brazil.