Tanker lorry in hit and run in Chennai: Look out for PY 01 Q 2377

A white tanker lorry involved in a car hit-and-run case escaped in traffic on Kamarajar Salai today, November 22, 2007 around 11.15 a.m.

If you want details, you can mail me.

The hit and run vehicle PY 01 Q 2377 did not cause injuries but damaged a car on the road and escaped. It is possibly involved in some criminal activity. Since the tanker did not heed the signal of road users to stop all along Kamarajar Salai from All India Radio to Napier Bridge, it is most probably involved in some illegal activity.

If you own this vehicle, you should report to Police, if not the insurance company for this tanker should respond. This tanker is not fit for insurance and it is driven by people who do not know driving and are probably not properly licensed.

Members of the public should report the sighting of this tanker to police, urging a proper investigation into its activities.

A call was made to Police on the emergency number 100 today at about 11.25 a.m. but there was no response and the control room did not respond to the call which apparently dropped.

Such vehicles must be refused insurance and pulled off the road, and their rash and negligent drivers arrested for prima facie illegality because they cause economic loss to the country in general and law-abiding individuals in particular.

These drivers make motor vehicle insurance meaningless, because they cause avoidable claims and affect those with unavoidable insurance claims. The operation of nationalised motor vehicle insurance through compalies such as the United India Insurance, National Insurance and others is bankrupted by such drivers, although these companies are partly to blame themselves for not insisting on proper enforcement by the Police and the installation of closed circuit television cameras along roads to fix responsibility.

It is also strange that the Chennai City Police control room did not respond to the call on an emergency number. Even if it was cut off due to call drop, the Police should have used the caller ID and returned the call immediately.

Mobile phones, accessories and competition in Chennai

The mobile phone industry is growing so fast in Chennai that consumers are getting ripped off in many ways. One of the areas in which they are being bled is high-priced accessories such as spare chargers and hands-free sets.

But I discovered at the Essar and Virgin co-branded The Mobile Store that you can get travel chargers for Rs.99 and hands free sets for Rs. 99 (single ear piece) and Rs.149 for the stereo sets from iBuddy. The audio quality is not bad, and the price is certainly a pittance compared to the avarice that guides the pricing of "originals" from the big names such as Nokia (they want Rs.800 to Rs.1300 for wired handsfree sets).

It is possible that there will be safety questions raised about these products (which would remind us about Hewlett Packard warning us not to refill our printer cartridges and instead fork out a lot more for their "originals").

What about explosions in off-brand mobile spares, some might counter. Frankly, I don't know. The Mobile Store avers that these are safe. Moreover, a hands-free cannot explode, and chargers seem a remote candidate for an explosion because they don't contain any recharging chemistry. But you decide.