Agreed, there could be many causes of deaths on roads mainly due to rash and negligent driving, over speeding, disregarding traffic signals, disregarding Railways level crossings and host of other reasons but potholes could wreck such an havoc just in a period of five years across the country is a sad commentary on the State and Central Governments’ concerned departments whose duty is to repair such potholes and make roads motor- able. Supreme Court has termed as “unacceptable” the death of 15000 people because of potholes and said that the number was probably more than those killed on borders by terrorists.
A Bench comprising Justices Madan .B. Lokar, Deepak Gupta and Hemant Gupta perused a report filed by the Supreme Court Committee on Road Safety, headed by former apex court judge Justice Radhakrishnan which said 14926 persons had died in road accidents due to potholes from 2013 to 2017 across the country. As a result, the Bench has now asked the Centre to file their response on the Committee’s report after consulting all State Governments. The matter is posted for further hearing in January 2019.
These figures are alarming. Human lives cannot be so cheap that such devastating findings by the Committee should not put on alert the concerned Municipal Corporations, State Governments and State Departments, NHAI and others for not maintaining the roads. It seems strange that in most of the cases, no cautionary signals are at least kept near such man holes pending their repairs to contain the rate of such deaths if not totally avert it. The best way to address the problem is to keep roads motor worthy and fit and safe for pedestrians’ use.