General causes and even commonality between road accidents are more or less known as rash and negligent driving, inexperience in and impatience while driving, state of inebriation during driving, absence of proper vehicle fitness, overloading of passengers, wrong overtaking , poor road maintenance and allied infrastructure or absence of spot medical facilities in cases of road mishaps and last but not least, no proper traffic regulation and enforcement of traffic discipline by Traffic Police. The directions to the Transport Department and all other concerned departments from the Government in conducting an analytical study of the road accidents , on the face of it, appears quite appropriate to find out the specific and common causes of these accidents which usually take a toll of precious human lives but such measures appear to be conceptual , theoretical and exercises to be undertaken on certain events like meetings of Road Safety Councils / traffic weeks etc if later there was no proper and result oriented follow up .
Whenever a tragic road accident takes place , a ”high level ” enquiry is instituted to find out the causes and to suggest preventive measures , afterwards it hardly appears that rectifying measures were properly taken. Reports are filed and those usually remain confined to the levels of a mere formality. Never ever were such findings made public not to speak of about the status of an expected Action Taken Report. What we suggest is a comprehensive approach towards achieving levels of increasingly minimised road accidents and the impact thereof as accidents obviously cannot, in any given conditions, be totally prevented . Drastic amendments in Motor Vehicles Act and penalties prescribed there-under for traffic violations have had marginal impact to discipline traffic culture on roads which is a matter of a mind-set also meaning a measure in isolation was not enough to address the problem. We, therefore, are in total agreement about the need of ”everybody to play a role” , improving associated infrastructure and a ”general awareness” besides ”third party road audit” as some top measures articulated in the recently convened meeting of Road Safety Council. Vigorous follow-up and remedial measures on the ground alone can bring quite encouraging results.
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