The accident was due to over-speeding, driving negligence and non compliances of safety measures like wearing seat belts in the rear seat, led to the tragic death.
Initially, the traffic police across the country showed the vigour of imposing fines on the people who defied traffic rules and safety norms but with the time passing by, it has gradually taken a back seat yet again.
Recently the Delhi traffic police had fined 17 people for not wearing the seat belts in their car rear seats. Yes, the fines could be a deterrent for the violators but this can only be streamlined if people take it as measure of their own safety rather than to avoid fines.
Two years ago when the country was reeling under Covid and lockdowns, the number of road accidents across the State of Goa in 2020 was around 2,400. Traffic discrepancies have been a major source of death, injury and damage to property every year. In 2020, over-speeding of vehicles was the main reason for road accident casualties. The south Asian country ranked first out of 200 reported in World Road Statistics that year for the number of road accident deaths.
According to the data released by the Union Ministry of Road Transport and Highways in May this year, even as Goa’s road accident numbers have dropped, it continued to have the highest rate in the country, with no other state or Union territory coming close to its figure of 109.4 accidents per lakh population. This is around four times the national average of 27.6 accidents per lakh population the report said. While the report states that the number of road accidents in Goa has reduced, their severity was actually higher than the previous year. With nine deaths reported for every 100 road accidents, the severity rate was 9.4 in 2020, as against 8.6 in 2019.
Recently the Chief Minister of Goa has mentioned that 95 per cent of the accident which takes place in the State is due to drunken driving. This clearly indicates that that traffic monitoring, regular and random checks are not in place in Goa which is a must as it is also a tourist State where lakhs of tourists visit every year.
In India most of the accidents also involved new vehicles which are less than 10 years old, pointing to mainly the fault of users.
The Planning Commission in its 2001-2003 research estimated that traffic collision resulted in an annual monetary loss of $10 billion (Rs 550 billion) during the years 1999–2000. In 2012, the International Road Federation (IRF) estimated that traffic collision results in an annual monetary loss of $20 billion (Rs 1 trillion (short scale)) in India. This figure includes expenses associated with the collision victim, property damage and administration expenses.
We all have the data and facts before us. What is required now is sharing of knowledge and strict monitoring on the road by traffic police by not only penalising the violators but also impounding their driving licence for a certain period.
The habit of wearing seat belts in the car both in the front and the rear seats must be inculcated from within. In fact, road safety issues also must be made a part of the curriculum in school so that the kids can not only learn early, before they are eligible to obtain driving licence but can also pass their learning to their parents at home.
