Julius Carvalho
The tragic Trasi-Udupi school van tragedy where eight little children lost their life and as many injured should be an eye-opener to Goa Road Transport Department and Goa Police traffic cell. Presently there is no check on school transports in Goa.
Goa is not lagging behind as far as percentage of road accidents is concerned, every now and then we read someone or the other lost their life on Goa roads. The main reasons are mainly due to rash driving, driving under influence of alcohol and the basic cause is that license is easily available without having any road discipline.
Coming back to Trasi accident it seems that the Maruti Omni van driver threw all the safety precautions to the wind, the cab was not painted yellow, the van was over capacity, the interchange at Trasi lack traffic police control specially during school dropping/picking time and the driver was rash to reach school for reasons best known to him. But let us not play blame game here but should take great note of this accident and implement rules to all vehicles transporting school children to their respective schools.
Foremost all school vehicles should be painted yellow and there should no compromise on this as other persons driving their vehicles can take safety norms as soon as they see yellow school vehicles. Also there should be speed limits on school vehicles (most of time I can see Bal Rath buses zooming at high speed), all interchanges should be manned by either Road Transport officials and traffic police during particular time of schools and also concern authority should make a surprise check on school vehicles to check their capacity as most of this transports are run with over-capacity in Goa.
The transport department and Goa police traffic department should prevent Trasi-type tragedy on Goan roads. The life of children should not be thrown to the winds as well as the life of children lost at Trasi should not go in vain but the authorities should learn to prevent another Trasi-type tragedy on our roads.
Finally let the departed souls of Trasi accident R.I.P and their loving parents and near once get all the courage to cope up with their life.
Wake up Goa Transport department and Goa Police traffic cell before it is too late.
