Ensure Road Safety

Bini Dahal

A 23-year-old motorcyclist recently lost his life after being hit by a tipper. The accident took place in Tarakeshwar Municipality. Right now, people are staging protests, terming the accident a murder, and demanding justice for the bereaved.

While the police will have to investigate deeper into the case, by presenting this incident, the scribe wants to highlight shocking road accidents that are taking place a bit too frequently across the country. And this is not the first mishap where motorcyclists have been injured severely or lost their lives after being hit by a large vehicle. 

In March this year, we heard the painful news of two schoolchildren losing their lives and their father suffering from a serious injury in Sundarijal of Kathmandu. The number of road accidents is rising day by day in the country and this is a troublesome topic.

The reasons behind such a distressing increase in the number of traffic accidents are many. Firstly, our road infrastructure is not in a good condition. The roads are congested and are not properly black-topped and maintained. So, if a large vehicle passes by, the smaller ones will have to remain highly alert. Also, speeding is another major cause of accidents. Overtaking and drunk driving are recurring problems.  

Our roads are not suited for the comfort of pedestrians as well. Zebra-crossings and footpaths are few and far between. The paints for the zebra-crossings are found to have faded away. Not only this, there remains a huge knowledge gap among pedestrians. They tend to ignore the use of zebra-crossings and overhead bridges just to save their time and avoid exertions. 

Secondly, our driving license system is kind of faulty in nature. Because we cannot drive without being an official license holder, everyone’s goal is to get a license anyhow. In such a situation, driving institutes and the learners themselves are focussed on passing the trial by hook or by crook. Once they pass, they are able to own and run a vehicle on the road.  They wrongly believe that owning a driving license is equal to gaining sufficient expertise in driving. But, does a card really testify our ability? 

Thirdly, the mechanical condition of most vehicles is   pretty distressing. There is no awareness among people regarding the need to maintain their vehicles as required. This significantly leads to accidents. 

Over the past few years, the traffic police personnel have been working on maintaining driving discipline. But this has not controlled road accidents. Rather, Nepal has made a name for itself, negatively, for having a large number of road accidents every year. Our investigating and penalizing mechanisms are also not scientific and practical. So, most drivers are confident of getting off scot-free even when they commit as big a crime as murder. This kind of negative confidence has contributed to people losing their lives and suffering to extremes. 

Just recently, two major road accidents—one in Jajarkot and another in Bethankot of Kavrepalanchowk district—took place, killing about 30  people and injuring many others.   

The country is we are in need of such rules and regulations that will prevent these incidents from happening again and again. Such objections and the incident itself should be an eye-opener for the government, the traffic police and the riders that they should be proactive from their respective sides to ensure safe driving.