I would not like to jump to conclusions because I still don't understand the situation completely.
But before believing this story, we need to understand that this is only the pedestrian version of the story. We cannot dismiss the possibility that this story may not be 100% correct, or that some facts may have been distorted in this version of the story.
I really don't know how wide the marine drive is, Mumbaikars can throw some light on this. Lets assume that it is 100 feet wide (50+50) and try to reconstruct the story. (Please see the attached image). The Sherlock Holmes in me feels that there are a lot of unanswered questions in this story.
If I understand correctly, the deceased was crossing the road from east to west (footpath to divider) 236 feet south of the signal, when the signal was red for vehicles coming from the north side.
1. It has been mentioned that the pedestrians started crossing the road when the signal was red for vehicles coming from the north. Lets assume that it takes 15 seconds for an able bodied person to cross a road 50 feet wide. Also, lets assume that the signal turned green for the vehicles coming from the north side exactly at the same time as the pedestrians started to cross the road. Also, assuming that the car driver started to move south as soon as the signal turned green. Then the car would have to cover roughly 250 feet in 15 seconds for the accident to happen. It may be noted that the car started from a complete halt 250 feet away. It is highly unprobable that the car was doing insane speeds when the accident happened. (If you read the complete article, it has been mentioned that the car speed was in the range of 40-50 kmph at the time of the accident)
2. It has been mentioned that one daughter managed to cross the road and reach the divider, while the other 2 pedestrians had a collision with the car. This clearly indicates that the 3 of them did not start crossing the road together (the other 2 possibly started crossing the road after the signal had turned green and traffic started coming from the north side) OR the other two were crossing the road too slowly and negligently, while not paying attention towards the traffic coming on the road.
3. Even if the pedestrians had started crossing the road after the signal had turned green for the traffic coming from the north side, when they saw a car coming towards them, they should have turned back and allowed the car to pass through, instead of expecting the car driver to apply brakes, to avoid the accident.
4. It has been mentioned that the car driver made no attempt to apply the brakes when he saw the pedestrians crossing the road. For this to happen, the car driver would have to be completely blind OR a complete moron OR totally distracted OR the pedestrians may have behaved in a very unexpected manner. The pedestrians may have been running across the road, or they may have made sudden forward/backward or start/stop move in the middle of the road, which the driver was not able to anticipate.
I am not taking anybody's side. I just mean to say that there are a lot of unanswered questions in the story. I really doubt whether the court listened to the car driver's side of the story before passing the popular judgement.
The car driver had stopped properly on the red signal. He started moving only after the green signal. He was not driving rash. He was not driving under influence. I still don't understand why he could not see 3 pedestrians crossing a well lit road. (As Jaggu mentioned, he may have simply plead guilty to put an end to the trial)
In my opinion, this judgement is the beginning of a very negative trend. What happened to this car driver could happen to any of us on any day. A responsible car driver should not be held responsible for pedestrians who don't care about their lives and the lives of their loved ones.
Rohan
Bangalore
P.S. I know that I should have been a lawyer or a crime scene investigator. Unfortunately, I am stuck in the IT industry.