Chennai: The reigning national champion race driver Vikash (22), who fatally knocked down an auto rickshaw driver while mowing down a dozen parked autos in the course of a joyride in a Porsche Cayman, might lose his driving licence.
The City Police will soon be acting on a recommendation that his licence be suspended by forwarding it to the road transport authority. Sources said the jurisdictional Investigating Officer will be forwarding his recommendation to the City Police office and it will be considered in consolidation with other such recommendations.
On compilation, the request will be forwarded to the concerned Regional Transport Officer (RTO), the issuing authority and will be acted upon accordingly. “We will send out a loud and clear signal that no such accidents should recur in the future. We have made the case watertight,”noted an official who is privy to the investigation.
During the small hours of Monday, Vikash was driving the super performance sports car along with its owner Charan Kumar (38) when he lost control of the vehicle, hit a kerb and the median and ran over a dozen auto rickshaws on Cathedral Road.
Preliminary investigations suggest Vikash, who had attended the victory celebrations of Tuti Patriots cricket team in the first edition of the TNPL, went for a spin before he insisted on taking Charan on the next one.
The first spin itself had scared motorists to make way for the vehicle that whizzed past them. The driver and his passenger had tested positive for blood alcohol content. Vikash, a second year law student and Charan were arrested and remanded to judicial custody on Monday evening.
In 2014, the City Police recommended suspension of as many as 5,903 licences of drunk driving offenders to the RTOs and the requests were complied with. The drive had another set of recommendations to suspend as many as 16,616 licences in similar offences.
“As many as 19,436 drunk driving cases were booked and 16,428 ended in conviction in 2012. It shot up to 62,708 cases and 53,616 convictions in 2013 and 55,288 cases and 46,140 convictions in 2014,” noted a senior police official.
