LET’S USE THE ROAD
WISELY
Recently there has been a flurry of instances wherein innocent peoples lost their life under the wheels of misfortune, either because of ignorance or due to fault committed not by the self, but by fellow beings. With newer members added every day to the already oversized population of vehicles, the problem is getting compounded. Pedestrians, the elderly, ladies, children and the physically challenged are the worst affected.
The Andaman and Nicobar Islands have seen massive increase in the number of vehicles of all classes, especially personal cars have more than doubled since 2004. Courtesy aggressive marketing by enterprising car dealers fortified with equally enthusiastic loan providers, almost all the roads in and around Port Blair town now stands occupied by one or the other kind of 2, 3, 4, 6 or 10 wheelers! Almost every model, variant, brand, genre of vehicles could be seen rushing from one end of the city to the other. The consequences of such increased population of vehicles on the roads than it could accommodate is visible in the form of rise in the number of accidents. He who grabs the steering rules the roost showing scant regard to fellow road users. Haphazard parking, buses-tempo halting anywhere to pickup passengers, 3 wheelers taking sudden u-turn amidst busy roads without signaling is order of the day in the city. Further the roads have become more and more noisy with vehicles especially buses, tempo, trucks loaded with goods, quarry products sounding every kind of shrill horns to claim space. The problem is more pronounced during peak school and office hours. A mad rush prevails, traffic etiquette takes the back seat in the melee. Over speeding, honking, overtaking, abrupt braking, lane crossing, lane blocking, whatever it may take, everybody wants to reach to their destination before anybody else. Such indiscipline among a handful of road users creates traffic chaos besides endangering life of the self as well as others on the road. The A&N Traffic Police during the recent past has done commendable job educating those road users who have forgotten their key lessons in driving. But much more is required to be done. To start with, surveillance cameras could be installed at traffic intersections so that violators could be put under constant watch even without the traffic personnel’s physical presence. Fines need to be reduced but intensified. Believe me, its not the amount of fine but the
embarrassment would prove deterrent and leave long lasting impression on the mind of the violator. Penalty needs to be imposed with the view to bring about a radical change in the mindset of the offender rather than using it as a means of increasing department’s contribution to Govt revenue. Before that roads ought to be made motorable. Rather than finding reasons to issue challan in the name of enforcement of traffic rules, efforts are required to be made for smooth flow of traffic so that no body is tempted to violate rules, accidents will reduce automatically. For instance those road dividers on the city roads are totally misfit. They infact add to inconvenience rather than solving traffic problems. Consider a car moving behind a bus which stops every now and then to pickup/drop passengers. Every time the bus stops, the car also need to stop because it cannot overtake. Some of the 2 wheelers will snake through, but the remaining 2, 3, 4, 6, 10 wheelers who have been following the bus on the same lane has no option but to waste time. Annoyed, the driver obviously would resort to honking horns repeatedly. Only a fool would not overtake and drive behind the bus like a bus. Those misfit road dividers therefore need to be removed immediately so that smooth flow of traffic could be ensured. In the recent road accident involving a private bus near Bengali Club, I was shocked to learn it is still unclear, the lady who died in the tragic mishap was driving pillion or a pedestrian. A surveillance camera could have narrated the whole incident, facilitating prosecution of the guilty. Through this article I urge one and all; the traffic personnel’s as well as fellow road users to exhibit better sensibility while on the roads. Let’s ride and let others too use the road to reach to ones destination - alive. After all life is precious, more so a life lost is lost for ever. However important the life of the deceased may be, however hard we may pray to the almighty begging for mercy, the departed never ever returns. “Maut bhaley hi be-waqt aa jaye, be-wajeh kise bhi naa miley”
Debkumar Bhadra, Shore Point, Bambooflat, S Andaman – 744107, email : debkumar_bhadra@yahoo.com