With tears on the heartening memory of ten tender children in Perumannu, near Kannoor in Kerala, crushed by the rash driving of a jeep driver, and many other lives parted this earth due to vehicle accidents ..................
One of the largest ever causes of death in this century is Motor Vehicle accidents. ninety percent of MV accidents are due to negligence in driving and lethargy in obeying traffic rules. India is a country where everything is subject to lethargy and procrastination. And Kerala is the most irresponsible state of India where Traffic Rules are heinously violated and drivers are more irresponsible towards life of people whether inside or outside their vehicle. The recent phenomena on the roads, the Tipper Lorries, reign the state as Killer Machines.
Who is responsible to protect the life and asset of the citizens?
Who is responsible to control traffic regulations?
Who is responsible to help the people when a casualty arises?
Government. Simply true. For serving the people, Govt collect Income Tax, Road Taxes, Safety CESS and various other taxes with names unknown to the people.
News reports frighten me about the change in attitude of the people. Injured persons lie unattended by others on the roads and many vehicles ran over the poor victim or bleed to death. Many news put me to shame. Our genes are mutated from our predecessors. Many things are there to write.
Nowadays the people are on a Merry-go-round centrifuging on selfish dreams. Injured persons lie down on the road un attended. A few months back an Officer of Food Corporation of India while trvelling as pillion passenger on her husbands bike hit down by a state owned passenger bus at Ettumanoor near Kottayam on an afternoon. The poor husband cried for help with her body on his lap but his cries ended in deaf ears. No passerby vehicle drivers stopped their vehicle. No pedestrian attended them. But to my dismay people try to flash even mobiles for photograph of the blood pool. Last week also similar incident to one Mr. Gopinathan, a gulf returned hit by a lorry and ran over him. No body attended the poor wife who laid down on her husbands body and after one hour a few autorickshaw drivers came and removed her to a nearby hospital. Do we change to a criminally cruel attitude?
The rulers have their safety and security to travel on the road. So its our duty to think about road safety. How can we reduce the total number of deaths/grievous injuries due to Motor accidents. On perusing the reasons I attribute the major cause is lack of commitment of the government to the lives of its people. It is the duty of the Govt to make the roads safe. The vehicle population is on indirectly proportion to the length of roads. I think Kerala is the worst for that. Even the N0:1 city of Kerala moving fast to metro status, Kochi, is still having the roads three decades before it had. Narrow roads, narrow bridges, lack of Railway over bridges, poor sanitation and drainage.. ho.. my dear Kochi. The Govt collects Road tax for 15yrs in advance. I don’t think any other state in the country has such a rule. More over a road safety CESS.
In my lower primary class-std IV- there was a lesson or road safety rules. Now the text books contain no such useful lessons. Hi-politicisation of education policy(aiming vote banks), work force etc leads to disappearance of such lessons from the text books. You cant see a chapter on First-Aid in the school texts. Many things to say…
Coming to road accidents, what we can do is
make more roads
strict control for issuing driving license
Periodic education for DL holders.
widening of roads with central median at accident prone area(at least)
Medical Aid posts at important points
Incorporate All Life & General(Non-Life) insurance companies to share the expenses for road widening/ median making/Medical Aid posts. Insurance companies face huge financial loss by each road accident. So make them participate in accident reduction/loss minimization activities.
Strict adherence to traffic rules and high penalty for violations
Guilty drivers should bear 50% of the compensation to the aggrieved.
Strict adhering to traffic rules.
Roadworthiness of Vehicles- No permit to old/poorly managed vehicles
Incentives to people who helped the injured to reach hospitals
Special road for Two wheelers
Immediate cancellation of DL and RC of rash driving two wheelers and other vehicles
We have to persuade the Government to act to reduce road accidents. Also we have to persuade insurance companies to participate in accident minimization projects.
Dear friends please think about what I said. I am sure you can propose more practical solutions. Please do……..
With love
Mohan Kumar
