Highway horror! Lax monitoring turns roads into death traps

STAFF REPORTER

GUWAHATI: The Friday's horrific accident at Rongajan, under Kohora Police Outpost in Golaghat district, has once again exposed the severe gaps in monitoring of the movement of vehicles, especially public transport and other commercial vehicles, on highways by the authorities concerned.

Caught on the wrong foot once again, it's no surprise that the administration has now suddenly become active. In fact, only after occurrence of a major preventable human tragedy, the authorities are seen to get their acts together, before things move back to square one.

The same knee-jerk reaction was witnessed even during another tragic mishap near Tetelia two months back that claimed seven precious lives, besides injuring several others. The accident was attributed to potholes on the busy Khanapara-Sonapur-Jagiroad stretch of national highway-27 (NH-27), triggering protests over poor maintenance by the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI), forcing the NHAI to undertake urgent repair work. 

Now, attributed to over-speeding by many, even the Friday's mishap in the Kaziranga stretch of NH-27 took place right under the nose of the administration. For instance, there's a speed limit on the highway passing through Kaziranga with CCTV cameras and dedicated control from where vehicle movements are monitored.

Hence, question has arisen how come the ill-fated Traveller's speed was not monitored, thereby exposing the laxity and sheer negligence of the authorities concerned. Now, whether this loophole would be addressed remains to be seen.

Further, of late, rash driving and overspeeding by Travellers on the highways have become somewhat a common sight, leading to frequent accidents. So, many have asked why the transport department has still not bothered to make speed limit mandatory for such category of vehicles, pointing out that cabs have speed limit mechanism installed, and drivers can't exceed that speed.

In fact, some of the common reasons cited for the growing mishaps on highways across Assam are over-speeding, distracted driving, reckless driving, and driver's drowsiness.

Use of mobile during driving on highways, leading to distractions, is also becoming a common sight, as authorities tend to look the other way. Drivers of public transport, especially Travellers, are also seen to be often indulging in reckless driving. In their bid to pick up more passengers and make multiple trips during the day, overspeeding and competition among fellow Traveller drivers have also become common on the highways, besides overloading.

The ill-fated Traveller that met with an accident on Friday too was reportedly overloaded beyond the vehicle's passenger-carrying capacity.

No wonder then that almost 70% of the road mishaps have been blamed on human error, thereby moving the spotlight on lax monitoring in the state.

Also, new vehicles are added to the road every day. But, serious questions have arisen over whether drivers are properly trained, especially those driving public transport and other commercial vehicles.

Further, poor road quality, which includes undulating or uneven road surface and potholes, and lack of proper road signage at key spots have also been blamed for the ever-increasing road accidents in the state's highways. Also, mechanical defect in vehicles is also cited as another major reason for the recent spurt in road mishaps.

Considering all these, it remains to be seen whether the government takes a broad overview of the underlying reasons behind the spurt in road mishaps, or remain content plugging a few loopholes in the entire enforcement mechanism.