Post-Noney tragedy, road safety concerns come to fore
- The People's Chronicle Editorial :: December 23, 2022 -
WHILE it's obvious that the school students' transporters would be highly perturbed with the announcement made by the chief minister that driving licence would be cancelled in case the number of students exceeds the vehicle's seat capacity, there is no better option left if motor accident related casualty figures are to be kept at the minimum.
The tragic deaths of students, teaching staff and others in Wednesday's bus accident in Noney district has left the entire population in shock but not many would have any viable suggestions to prevent such accidents other than hoping that the drivers would follow road safety guidelines and curb the instinct to test the speed of multi-gear vehicles up for sale at regular intervals.
Acknowledging the urgency to strictly enforce existing road safety rules in the wake of the Noney accident, chief minister Biren has given the clarion call to drivers of passenger vehicles to avoid rash driving and taken grim note of school van operators cramming students well beyond the vehicle's capacity.
It needs no reminding that in order to complete picking up and dropping the students within the shortest possible time, van drivers tend to push the pedal, which is akin to undermining safety of the kids traveling in the vehicles.
Apart from accidents involving school vans, which fortunately has not been calamitous so far, there had been cases of students complaining about extreme discomfort due to space crunch not to mention of a particular incident some years when scores of school kids had to be hospitalised after they lost consciousness after inhaling toxic fumes due to engine defect of a school van.
Nevertheless, with large number of unemployed denizens taking to transportation of students as their source of sustenance, the government's threat to cancel the driving licence if the vans do not stick to the seat capacity might offend the drivers and possible suspension of service in protest.
Thus, even if the government's proposition is reasonable and would ensure safety of the students to a great extent it is advisable that before any harsh action is initiated there should be consultation with the school authorities and tasked to deal with any unwanted situation.
With the increasing number of vehicles in the state, it is but natural that the people will not only have to live with the new normal of heavy traffic congestion but also lose their near and dear ones to accidents.
As such, other than endeavouring to reduce the number of fatalities associated with accidents through stringent enforcement of road safety norms and the vehicle operators driving with extreme caution, it seems that no amount of threat or appeal could prevent road mishaps.
With national, state and inter-district highways getting wider and smoother compared to number of speedier vehicles on the rise, it would be no less than a miracle if the state sees no fatal accidents.
As such one of the options left for the government to prevent loss of lives is to instruct law enforcement personnel deployed at the ground level to ensure that there is strict adherence to traffic rules by the public and promptly pull up those who undermine basic safety regulations like wearing helmet, seatbelt and underage driving.
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