The increasing number of fatalities and total number of road crashes from 4.89 lakh in 2014 to over 5 lakh in 2015 indicated how a slew of initiatives taken by the Centre and state governments for road safety had little impact on users. The Supreme Court appointed panel on road safety has written to state governments to step up efforts to curb crashes and fatalities.
"This necessitates why we need a comprehensive legislation in place to deal with this daily massacre on our roads. Stronger law and better enforcement would be the key to reduce deaths and injuries," said K K Kapila of International Road Federation.
The NDA government had announced enacting a bolder law for road transport and safety soon after coming to power following the death of Union minister Gopinath Munde in an early-morning crash. But there has been little progress with some states expressing reservations against provisions of the bill. The road transport ministry has called a meeting of state transport secretaries next week to prepare a roadmap for measures to reduce crashes, including a stricter regimen for issuing driving licences and installing safety gadgets in vehicles.
Nothing should outrage a civilised country more than the avoidable loss of human life. When the scale of that loss is so huge, nearly 1.5 lakh a year and rising, our collective conscience demands action to prevent it. It is not as if what is needed is an impossible ask. Strict implementation of simple traffic rules and transport norms can go a long way towards drastically reducing these deaths.But if we let overloaded trucks ply with impunity on our highways, and reckless motorists jump red lights at whim, for instance, the dubious distinction of being the country with the largest number of road accident victims will remain ours.
No comments:
Post a Comment