Satyamev Jayate is back with its second episode, and this week Aamir Khan is discussing road accidents.
The man who lost everything
The first segment of this show started with Aamir Khan talking about over 300 deaths in India that are caused due to road accidents. He then introduced a man who lost his wife, unborn child and mother-in-law in a gruesome road traffic accident in Delhi. The man talked about how they were returning with their father-in-law, who had recently undergone a heart surgery, from the hospital. He talked about how a college aged boy was speeding in a BMW and crashed into them, killing three members of the man's family.
The school kids who never made it
In this segment Aamir Khan spoke of an accident that occurred on the roads of Punjab, where a school bus crashed into a truck loaded with bricks, killing almost all the children on board and the driver of the school bus. An expert on road safety said that not only was the driver intoxicated, but the bus the children were riding in was one that was to be scrapped and was remodeled to be used as a school bus. According to expert this was not an accident it was murder.
The mother who lost the love of her life
The next part of the show, Aamir Khan talked to Apneet Bakshi whose husband died in a road accident when he rammed into a truck that was carrying metal rods. According to statistics close to 9000 people die every year in India due to accidents involving impalement by these metal rods.
A reality check
In an attempt to highlight the other side of the story, Aamir Khan spoke to truck drivers. He spoke to them about what driving on the roads on India involved. The segment involved bites from truck owners talking about how a driver can get a licence without giving a test, how trucks are not tested for its readiness, how owners of trucks overload their vehicles and how drivers are pushed to such an extent that they drink and drive just so that they can stay awake. Apart from that, they even spoke about how police men never bothered to check if the driver was awake, drunk or high; all they did was accept a bribe of about 30 rupees from every driver and allow the truck to pass. One truck driver even said that they were treated so badly that the owners often fed their dogs before they fed their drivers.
The president who blamed the people
Once the truck drivers had spoken about their plight, Aamir Khan attempted to question the authorities about the plight of the Indian roads and truckers by speaking to Mr Bhim Wadwa, President All India Motorist Association. Mr Wadwa, while the president of an organisation that was supposed to man the working of truckers, was clearly not ready to face Aamir Khan's onslaught of questions. When asked about why they allowed trucks to be overloaded and for metal rods to protrude from trucks, putting people's lives at risk, he said that they were only humans and were capable of making mistakes. This infuriated Aamir Khan, who chided him for shirking his responsibility.
An Additional Commissioner who refused to see the truth
In this segment Aamir Khan called upon Satish Sahastrabuddhe, Additional commissioner of transport, Maharashtra to clarify some of the accusations placed on the RTO of India. When Aamir Khan spoke of the fact that people were not given tests before issuing them a licence, he denied the claim and said that was not possible. But when Aamir Khan asked the audience, he found that of all the people there only four or five of them had actually given a test he questioned Mr Sahastrabuddhe again to which he said that those people should have asked for the test and not accepted their licence without one. Now that's what we call deflection of blame.
It's the roads not the motorist
Next, Aamir Khan called upon Dr Rohit Baluja, the Director of the Institute of Road Traffic Education who highlighted that it was the conditions of the roads, ill planned roads and not the drivers alone who were to blame for the rates of accidents. In the same segment Aamir Khan also spoke to David, who was from UK and used to test the safety of cars in UK. On testing the condition of Indian cars he found that in case of an accident Indian cars would not stand a chance. He also highlighted the fact that if only the cars had airbags, the safety standards would rise dramatically helping save a large number of lives. In this segment Aamir Khan urged the Indian government to emphasise the need for airbags in every car.
The man who lost his wife to public apathy
In the final segment of the show, Aamir Khan spoke about a man, Kanhaiyya Laal, who was hit from behind by a truck, fatally wounding his wife and child. He lay on the road for over an hour during which he waited for someone to help him, but due to the lack of any help, Kanhaiyya Laal lost both, his wife and child.
How to save a life
Aamir Khan then spoke to Mr Piyush Tiwari, from the SaveLIFE foundation about the need for people to help those who were injured in road traffic accidents. he then went on to talk about how he had lost his cousin brother to a road traffic accident where no one helped the boy for over an hour. He then expressed how the foundation had helped teach the police in Delhi about how to provide first aid to accident victims. He highlighted how these teachings had helped save the lives of three foreigners who were in an accident where they were impaled by metal rods protruding from a truck.
Tips to drive safely
In the end Aamir Khan gives viewers tips on driving safely on the roads of India, here are the tips he gave:
The three boys who saved a life
Keep watching this space for more on today's episode.
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