PANJIM Even as the recent spate of road accidents in the State seems to have jolted the traffic police awake and spurred them to take strict action against violators, law enforcement statistics show an unprecedented rise – a 41 percent jump- in the number of accidents in June this year, when compared to June 2021 and a 30 % jump in road deaths
In June 2022, Goa recorded 239 road accidents, as compared to 169 during the same month in 2021. Eighteen people lost their lives in 18 fatal accidents in June this year, as compared to 13 people in June 2021, most of them two-wheeler riders and pillions.
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From January to June 2022, the state recorded 1,589 accidents, as against 1,332 for the same period last year – a 19 percent increase. There has also been a major jump in the number of fatal accidents and people killed to date this year (January to June). In this six-month period, 134 persons were killed in 127 accidents in 2022, a 30% rise from the previous year. In 2021, 103 people died in 100 fatal accidents in the same six-month period.
This also reveals that multiple road users, including pedestrians or passengers, are killed in each fatal accident. Twenty-four pedestrians were killed to date this year, as against 10 for the same period last year. This is a fact that motorists need to remember when they get behind the wheel when inebriated or driving recklessly – that it is not just their own lives at risk.
There has also been an upswing in the severity of the accidents reported this year, with 19 people sustaining grievous injuries in June 2022, as against eight people last year.
The spate of deaths had not ebbed in July though the data is not yet out. The heart-wrenching accident on the Zuari Bridge where four people lost their lives, followed by an elderly Dubai-returned couple dying in a road accident at Navelim is an indication of how blood splattered our streets have become due to fatal accidents.
While the police place the onus to prevent accidents on the road users, motorists complain that some accidents are inevitable.
These are due to the dismal condition of the roads, lack of streetlights on vast stretches of highways as well as internal roads, and the lack of proper signboards warning people of detours, trenches dug up for utilities and unpainted speed-breakers.
