Road accident deaths: Causes graver than concerns

Though daily police reports about road accidents present a horrible scenario as otherwise also almost every week see newspaper headlines screaming about casualties being inflicted by road accidents across the state but the government says nothing beyond the token relief for the road accident victims. While the traffic authorities blame rash and negligent driving for most of the road accident deaths, the two obvious reasons for the tragic deaths in road accidents are bad roads and lack of proper traffic regulation measures. Years ago the Kashmir’s Traffic Department had planned to introduce traffic interceptor vans to be equipped with cameras and radar, but the proposal did not receive the attention it deserved from the government. More shocking is the fact that the fatality of roads has been ignored and it has become precedence in Kashmir that only a huge accident involving the death of dozens attracts attention of the government. The response to road accident deaths remains confined to statements and condolence messages of the helmsmen as days after mourning deaths caused by the fatal road accidents everything settles in and the vehicles go on killing people as usual. Silence of the public functionaries concerned with the traffic regulation on the causes of frequent road accidents deaths is highly condemnable and unless and until the government does not try to dig out the root causes of the road accident deaths with the purposes of looking for some remedial measures, the killer roads will continue to take their toll. Since the first culprits are the roads as there is hardly any road perfectly fit and safe for driving, the repair and macadamisation works both in Srinagar city and as wells major towns of Kashmir valley deserve immediate attention of those heading R&B department. Though it is also a fact that most of our roads are located in remote mountain areas but there can be no compromise on safety at steep turns over deep ravines on the roads leading to mountain areas. The next culprits are the vehicles used for public transportation services. Most of these have outlived their utility and there is absolutely no physical check on the fitness of these vehicles.
The outdated vehicles are not only a severe threat to the lives of passengers travelling in passenger vehicles but also the greatest source of pollution. By all standards of administrative understandabilities the government is entirely responsible for the increasing frequency of road accidents. Claiming that government has taken several measures such as introducing more stringent penalties under the Motor Vehicles Act is not enough for the helmsmen to stop the frequency of road accidents in both Kashmir and Jammu divisions of the state as government is both administratively and as well as humanly obliged to reconsider a proposal of the Sunder Committee to further amend the Motor Vehicles Act . For the attention of the present helmsmen in Jammu & Kashmir it may be noted here that the Sunder Committee headed by India’s former transport secretary S. Sunder has proposed higher penalties for offences like crossing the speed limit, driving without a licence, use of a mobile phone while driving, and not wearing seat belts. The Committee has recommended fines ranging from 1,000 rupees (20 dollars) to 5000 rupees (100 dollars) plus imprisonment. At present traffic regulators either let such offenders go or impose a nominal fine of 100 rupees (two dollars). So the facts reveal that truth that the causes of road accident deaths deserve more attention than condoling and consoling the road accident victims.