Not much more than an annual affair : Road safety in a place sans speed limit
- Sangai Express Editorial :: January 13, 2014 -

An annual affair it is. The Road Safety Week, it is.

The question is, does the State of Manipur have its own version of Traffic policy ?

We do understand that there is a State Transport Policy, Manipur, which encompasses traffic regulations or vehicular movements, but are they implemented in letter and spirit ? If one looks at the traffic chaos in Imphal city, not snarls, then one may safely draw a conclusion that the policy exists only on paper and not on the roads and streets.

In its strictest sense, roads are meant for vehicles and pedestrians, but in more than one way, in Manipur, particularly in Imphal, roads have been turned into some sort of a social platform, for people to socialise !

With shrinking space, especially in Imphal, roads are now increasingly being used for social dos and rites and rituals, by partially cutting off the road. Such a practise becomes a given during the Yaoshang festival when roads or one side of the road is cut off to hold Thabal Chongba and during Durga Puja when pandals and other platforms are erected in the middle of the roads.

Due permission may have been obtained from the authority concerned, but this goes against the understanding of roads and the reason why roads are built.

Adding to the chaos is the overwhelming VIP culture, where the common motorists are expected to give way to the Ministers or anyone with a flag post and beacon lights, never mind the fact that the traffic is heavy and there is just no way for the common man to manoeuvre the vehicle to give the right of way to the class of people who come under the VIP category.

The traffic lights put up at important junctures of Imphal have literally been reduced to decorative pieces and for all practical purposes to the people as well as the VIPs, the term Zebra Crossing may not have anything to do with traffic rules and regulations, but something to do with the Zoo !

Questions may also be asked on how many trained traffic cops are there on duty, though there is a department called the Traffic Control Police !

A place where the concept of speed limit is alien, resulting in a situation where the speed of a vehicle depends on the volume of traffic.

If the traffic is heavy, then the rule is go slow. If it is light, then step on the accelerator and drive like the devil.

Add the fact that the general understanding of driving has not progressed beyond starting the engine, warm it up, step on the clutch, put the vehicle on top gear and slowly release the clutch to put the vehicle into motion and the result is there for all to see.

In the face of a people where the understanding of driving does not go beyond the five stage of putting the vehicle into motion and a Government machinery which is totally lost when it comes to regulating the flow of vehicular movement, the figure of death toll and road mishaps is something of a surprise.

Does not exactly qualify to be called a miracle, but there must be some ‘divine hands’ at work to avert road accidents !

It is against this system, a system which has no speed limit, where untrained personnel are put into service to regulate the flow of traffic and a people with no traffic sense, that the Road Safety Week is observed every year without fail.

An annual affair, it is, with nothing much to show things have improved or are likely to improve in the near future.

This is not to say that everything is lost, but something more, something meaningful needs to be done.

Are the traffic personnel empowered to pull up anyone, however well connected or how high a position one occupies in the corridors of power, if and when they violate traffic rules ?

Why is it that no traffic personnel are able to shoo away the heavy trucks of the Army, the para-military forces and other uniformed personnel from the middle of an extremely congested road ?

These are points which should be studied and pondered over seriously and accordingly take up steps if the Road Safety Week is to have any meaning or substance.