Irony to this fact is that there is a tremendous effort to develop road infrastructure, safer vehicles etc and despite all that the Road, Transport and Highway Minister Nitin Gadkari pointed out that a whopping five lakh road accidents take place in the country, in which 1.5 lakh people die every year. This figure is too alarming.
The minister in his statement earlier this week showed helplessness when he further added that “unless their (drivers) mindset and attitude change, it would be difficult to reduce number of road accidents in the country.”
If you enjoyed reading this article, you can help support our journalism by adding OHeraldo as a preferred source.
The first two months of this year, Goa witnessed, 404 accidents and 41 deaths. Frequent fatal accidents reported in the State have turned Goan roads into death traps and the trend is far from receding. With road infrastructure in place, what one can observe that either the infrastructure was inappropriately designed of the people using the road are careless and irresponsible.
On Thursday, the Delhi High Court observed that rash and negligent driving does not necessarily mean excessive speed and will include not taking due care while driving, particularly overtaking either a stationary or moving vehicle. This also indicates that the law against irresponsible driving on the road is still evolving and fines and penalties for any such offence can be easily evaded.
Most of the times these road accidents happen either due to drunken driving, negligence and the feeling of “I don’t care for others, me first” attitude. Combination of all the three is all the more dangerous particularly for those who diligently following all the laws and norms of safe driving. The recent Delhi Court observation came on a petition by the family of a motorcycle rider who died after colliding with a bus parked in the middle of the road without any signal or light indicator on the night of July 22, 2012. The Motor Accidents Claims Tribunal had granted more than over Rs 17 lakh to the family but ordered a deduction of 20 per cent towards contributory negligence by the deceased. It simple means the fault was at both ends and the monitoring by the traffic police on the road was absent.
Justice Gaurang Kanth, in a recent order, observed that from the account of the eyewitness, there was no doubt that the accident occurred due to the irresponsible and negligent parking of the bus in the middle of the road, but it could have been avoided if the victim could have driven his motorcycle with all due care while crossing the stationary vehicle. This court also mentioned that rash and negligent driving does not in every case necessarily mean excessive speed. “Not taking due care while driving the vehicle and in particular overtaking, either stationary or moving vehicle also would amount to rash and negligent driving”, the Court observed.
Even though India ranks 90th in the list of countries in the world with the highest accident rates, and it trend is likely to grow, what is required is mapping of data to strategise and take action to curtail the incidents. This can be done in Goa too. The capital of India, Delhi, has a 20 per cent accident rate, followed by Mumbai with around 18 per cent, according to the ACKO Accident Index 2022 report. On the other hand, Bengaluru is the least accident-prone city in India. Delhi has almost three times the number of cars compared to Mumbai. Despite this, the accident percentage in both the cities is almost similar.
Interestingly the data from ACKO revealed that a total of 236 accidents were caused by coconuts in six months. Also, the data revealed that 4 per cent of accidents are caused because of stray animals on the roads.
It is time that Goa too can map these statistics on who, where and why the accident happened and increase monitoring or make changes in the designs of road infrastructure which is good on paper but not for practical purpose. Yes, the most important still happens to be the change in mindset and attitude of the person sitting on wheels and be responsible towards others.
