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Driven crazy

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The death last week of a 35-year-old radiologist, Amit Diwan, from injuries suffered during a road-rage attack has thrown into relief the insanity, chaos, pandemonium and evil tempers that reign on the capital's roads.

Psychiatrists are warning of mounting levels of road rage. At the slightest provocation, drivers rain blows on one another.

The amazing thing is not the existence of road rage but that the roads are not rivers of blood. The driving is enough to arouse homicidal fury.

First-time visitors are usually stunned. No one observes lane discipline, most jump red lights and no one looks before swinging out from a side street on to the main road.

People drive the wrong way up one-way streets, drive the wrong way down dual carriageways, and everyone overtakes on the left. Scooter drivers weave in an out of traffic as though they are performing circus stunts.

And I haven't even mentioned the cows meandering all over the place.

Every driving rule is trampled on. It's carte blanche. Anarchy. You are free to do as you wish. A truck driver on a dual carriageway who realised that he was travelling in the wrong direction last week just did a U-turn and started driving against the traffic. A fast-moving car crashed into him, and its young driver died.

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