With the increasing fatalities on Goan roads, the approach of the police and the Transport Department to reduce fatalities by half is misplaced considering that they want to achieve this target by use of equipment like radar speed guns etc. This will not work since we have seen in Goa that equipment with sophisticated technology is brought in but then it rarely remains functional after some time. Thus the money spent on such equipment is clearly wasted. The other aspect to ensuring road safety is the need to curb rash driving and over-speeding which are responsible for large numbers of accidents.
It has been the experience in places like Delhi, Bangalore and even on the Mumbai-Pune Expressway that motorists exchange signals mostly by blinking their headlights to warn oncoming traffic of RTO, Police checks or even radar speed guns and at most the authorities will catch just one offender and the rest will escape. Even to get past the speed guns motorists are seen to slow down at places where the guns are placed at random and then speed up after they pass that location. Thus in the majority the investment on high technology gadgets becomes futile. The problem of trying to reduce fatalities is not easy and a slow and steady approach is recommended. Children can be educated on road safety so that they remind their family members to drive safely. Though such programme is already in place, it needs to be intensified. Road safety lectures can be given in colleges to bring home aspects of driving carefully since 2-wheeler riders comprises a large number of the total number of accidents that take place and college students are largely using 2-wheelers. Moreover, for traffic offenders who the police/RTO are able to intercept, the standard procedure should be impounding of driving licence and payment of fine at the RTO/police office where they should be given a copy of the MARG book – Our Friend The Road. This book has been distributed among schoolchildren; for adults, it will be a reminder that the road belongs to all of us and it is our civic responsibility to drive safely. Once a person is booked for traffic violation, they should be been given the book should be asked to come for a test after one month which can be administered by MARG and only upon clearing the test they should be given back their driving licence. .We can progressively move towards this kind of a system but developing a conscience to drive safely through the MARG book could be a first step. With our roads getting progressively wider, the incidence of accidents will increase because rash driving and over-speeding will be on the rise. That is why we need to put traffic lights on our roads — the simplest and first level of road automation in which Goa is sadly lacking. Other than the traffic light at Dabolim Airport and the O’Cocqueiro Circle in Porvorim it is rare to see a functioning traffic light in Goa. The very fact that traffic lights are seen on our roads and the lights flash from red, amber to green will bring a consciousness that there is a regulation of traffic and one has to drive safely. At night times with the lights flashing amber there will be enhanced visibility of the need to take care.
