A torpid administration wrapped in inertia
ACCIDENTS on the highways have become so random that the resultant deaths and injuries have become a fait accompli for the passengers and their close family members. Repetitive occurrences indicate the crass disregard of transport owners, drivers and of course the administration for the safety of the passengers or of others who are using the roads. To think that 52 people were killed and around 150 injured in one day alone, on June 23, beggars belief. The two major accidents, which cost 24 lives, were the result of reckless driving. One of the buses involved did not have a fitness certificate.
We had warned before the start of the Eid holidays that the administration must take extra safety measures, particularly for the return journey. Because, added to the shortage of transports and everyone rushing to their respective workplaces on the very last day, are the inclement weather and the propensity of the owners and drivers to make as many round trips as possible a proclivity compelled by sheer profit motive. Consequently, caution is thrown to the wind, because for them, nothing but money matters. And absence of police supervision allows unauthorised vehicles like nasimons and karimons to move with impunity on the highways in large numbers.
The highest death toll in one single day during Eid holidays was 46 in 2015, and last year, the 13 days of Eid holidays cost 174 lives. Regrettably, these horrendous statistics could not compel the authorities to go into why these crashes had occurred and what could be done to rectify the errors.
Money is not an adequate recompense for the lives lost or the injured, many of them permanently. Unless the chances of road accidents are reduced, the hazard will continue to take lives in increasing number every day. This is an epidemic, and the relevant authorities must wake up from slumber and address it as such.
- Courtesy: The Daly Star /Editorial /June 25, 2018
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