39 death knells lurk on Goa’s roads

PANJIM: The Goa Police have identified 39 accident-prone zones and black spots on the roads across the State. According to the police, there are 10 black spots on National Highway and the rest on State highways and other roads. Road safety stakeholders have called for proactive efforts from the licencing authority and the Public Works Department (PWD) to resolve the problem of increasing fatalities on the State’s roads.

With one death reported on State’s roads due to accidents daily, Chief Minister Pramod Sawant held a meeting with all agencies with regard to road safety. During the meeting, a report of 39 accident-prone zones and black spots that witnessed fatalities was placed. Ponda has a maximum of 11 such spots followed by Calangute with 6 critical zones. The Traffic Cell of Goa Police has carried out a detailed analysis of the spots and has suggested long and short-term measures to the PWD and the agencies concerned to reduce fatalities.

“Even though the Government is in the process of rectifying the accident-prone zones and black spots, it is important to ensure we are not creating more spots in the pursuit of rectifying one. The PWD and Director of Transport have the primary responsibility. Road engineering and issuing of licences to the applicants is a critical issue surrounding the road safety in Goa,” said Roland Martins of GOACAN, an NGO.

Adv Moses Pinto, the author of the book ‘Practice Traffic Yoga’ said, “The Traffic Cell of the concerned Police Station where an accident-prone zone or black spot exists is quite effective as far as reducing accidents is concerned. Having speed radars and getting signages installed in accident-prone zones can be done by the Traffic Cell.”

 Superintendent of Police Traffic Dharmesh Angle said the licencing process has to be more stringent as the person, who is issued a driving licence, is not responsible, and can be a lethal weapon.

“This is an effort where all agencies have to come together and work for road safety,” said Angle.

PWD Chief Engineer (Roads Division) Dinesh Gupta said that rectifying black spots and accident-prone zones is a continuous process.

“Out of the 24 black spots cited by the Government of India, 10 have been rectified. But 12 spots remain due to land acquisition issues,” Dinesh said.

He said that issues halting the land acquisition have been conveyed to the Chief Minister in a recent meeting.