Goa continues to see fatal accidents happening on roads. Seven people succumbing to road accidents within 72 hours is horrific. In a single day on Saturday, four young lives were lost in two separate accidents – Mandrem and Nanora. Two girls from a family were hit by a truck while in the Nanora accident, two boys were killed when their bike had a head-on collision with an oncoming car. The run of accidents continued on Sunday and Monday. The irony is that these accidents are not precisely due to bad condition of roads, but rather over-speeding and mainly traffic errors.
The data shows frightening figures. Goa has recorded 1,824 accidents from January till date this year, averaging 7 accidents per day and one death every 31 hours. There have been 187 people seriously injured in these accidents. The situation is turning from bad to worse, and assurances from the police leadership of reworking strategies of road management have failed.
Road accidents and deaths have been the most worrisome factor for the State government and the enforcement, and despite several initiatives, nothing much has changed.
If we recall, the Director General of Police Alok Kumar who recently took over the reins had assured to reform road policing, citing several grey areas including predictable checkpoints. He floated the idea of enforcement turning mobile with police, increasing the number of nakas and showing zero tolerance to violators. The DGP promised a round-the-week vigil and said his police force is moving in the right direction.
A month later, the accident scenario continues unabated and policing continues to be the same old “cat-and-mouse game” between motorists and police which the DGP had referred to earlier. Let aside the Goa Road Safety Policy that is gathering dust, and the several failed initiatives including a public hearing and the appointment of a high-level 3-member committee, authorities have been unable to get to the root of the problem.
The issue of road accidents cannot be seen from the perspective of independent factors. Better roads, signages and policing go hand in hand. The highways may be broad and even cemented, but the rural roads in some areas still cut out a sorry figure. A cursory look at the accident data shows that a majority of the accidents, almost 75 per cent, have occurred in rural areas where policing continues to be virtually non-existent. The Mandrem accident, for example, involved a case of triple-seat ride. People continue to take such liberties with the law because there is no policing.
Installing speed cameras and equipping police with alcometers is not enough to tide over the situation. The entire outlook towards traffic management has to change from the current one which appears focussed more on generating revenue through challans rather than streamlining traffic. Given the limited manpower, enforcement may be unable to reach out to critical areas of rural Goa, and that’s a glitch that the government will have to fix if the system has to transition. There are thousands of violations, from drunken driving, overspeeding, helmetless riding, reckless overtaking and riding beyond capacity that are going unnoticed every single day.
Road management in Goa must be looked at from a much wider perspective and not just from the purview of coastal or urban areas. Till the time policing shifts gears and authorities truly understand what is genuinely required, roads will continue to haunt everyone.
