Emergency preparedness can be made

When a society has chosen to accept democracy as its credal faith, it is elementary that the citizens ought to know what their government is doing.

We are not far away from the day when the only sounds of music heard in Goa would be the sirens emanating from ambulances across the State. Every day one reads about deaths from road accidents and fatalities. Negligent and rash driving has become so common in Goa and can be witnessed at all hours. Drunk driving is even more common. Oil tankers, private buses and trucks are driven like two-wheelers flouting all traffic rules and regulations. One can witness two-wheelers carrying cement bags, ladders and construction materials. National Highways are a racing track for Mercedes, Audi, SUVs, BMWs, buses and tankers… Violation and abuse of traffic rules and regulations is increasing. As several people succumb to their injuries or are left incapacitated or sustain serious injuries or survive with badly disfigured faces, the guilty are let off after mere formal arrest by application of lighter charges and invoking bailable sections of the legal provisions against them. India is one country where a person kills someone by rash and negligent driving and gets away easily with the least punishment. Our legal system is so strange and mystifying that more often than not the victim but the common man is relegated to the role of a silent spectator. It’s difficult to be conscious of the plight of a child losing his/her parents or parents losing their child in an accident.

I am a resident of Panjim where the traffic is in total mess and if this is the state of affairs in the vicinity of the police headquarters, it’s imaginable in other parts of the State. At the moment, the government officials themselves seem to be in the “potholes” to provide any acceptable justifications for this situation in the State.

The traffic management in Goa needs to be considerably enhanced to deal stringently with motorists plying on Goa roads. With the growing traffic of the domestic, national and international visitors, Goa is gaining the distinction of scoring extremely high on road accidents. I am not going to quote the grim statistics as official figures on the snuffed-out lives are grossly underestimated. However, whilst everyday in the newspapers accidents are reported, still many go unreported. The burgeoning traffic on Goa’s roads should be a serious and major concern for all as death stalks Goa’s roads.

The Traffic Cell of the Goa Police needs to recognise the urgency of regulating the traffic to curb the accident rates. The mechanisms in place are inadequate. High speed vehicles openly flout all traffic rules and regulations with utter disregard to law. Traffic Police should be immediately augmented.

The suffering of the families of those, who succumb to their injuries or are incapacitated in the accidents, is unimaginable. And that is a story that will ever be inadequately told. For no one who has not experienced such a situation this can know its depths. The statistics are fearsome, each individual case a major tragedy.

An inspection of most roads would expose gross engineering defects which are hardly rectified making stretches accident-prone. Most roads “decorated” by Public Works Department (PWD) with potholes of all shapes and size are virtual death traps. These potholes cause danger and immense hardships to all.

Officials of PWD….Public Works Department should realise that members of the public have a legal right to use the roads in an unobstructed manner and the PWD is bound by law to fill up the potholes, together with levelling and resurfacing the roads.

I think we have been amazed enough by words like pragmatic and practical for an issue like this that causes untold physical, mental and emotional damage to the helpless and unprotected section of the population.

Emergencies can’t be predicted, but emergency preparedness can be made. All of us should at once be concerned in an intimate and serious way with every life lost in a road accident.