Team Herald
Ponda: BLOOD SPLATTERED ZONES THESE ARE. Ponda roads are becoming a veritable death trap for motorists and pedestrians. Sharps turns, bad surfaces and rash driving are snuffing out lives like nine pins. The slack attitude of the authorities is another reason for concern.
From senior citizen to officer-goers and even children, death has spared none. If you think parents are callous by handing over the keys of two-wheelers to the youth, the helmetless pillion riders are also on the “wrong side”. To top it all, these roads carry heavy traffic, including trucks which often are the main reason for fatal accidents.
Several times the wrong alignments of roads have been highlighted in the media reports, but these have failed to evoke any response from the concerned authorities.
As it is the roads are congested and to make matters worse, pipes and construction material are dumped on the roadsides to make these throughfares even congested. During lean hours, scooterists and motorists have a tendency to step on gas and whiz past these roads leading to fatal accidents.
During last one month, Ponda police recorded around 8 road accident deaths and the victims were in the age group of 16 to 35. This includes a woman.
On 13 March, the day Holi was observed, two labourers lost their lives when a person driving an Audi, lost control and hit them killing one on the spot and one later died in the hospital.
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Scooterist killed
Ponda: In a head-on collision between two scooters at Khandepar, Ponda, one of the scooterist, Yogesh Keshav Sathakalkar, 34, from Vatem, Sattari, died on the spot. The other scooterist from Tisk Usgao fled the spot leaving his vehicle at the accident site. He later surrendered.
According to Ponda police, Yogesh was an attendant at Hospicio Hospital Margao and was heading home on his Activa when the accident took place. Yogesh sustained serious head injuries. Excessive bleeding led to his death.
