Road safety plans prove ‘ineffective’
Arteev Sharma
Tribune News Service
Jammu, February 21
Notwithstanding the government’s much-talked policies and plans to reduce fatalities in road mishaps, Jammu and Kashmir’s ‘killer’ roads continues to take a heavy toll on human lives as around 1,000 persons have lost their lives in nearly 5,800 road accidents last year alone.
The number of persons killed in road mishap in 2018 was 1,006 — 824 males and 182 females — while 7,718 persons were injured.
The official statistics reveals that the government’s all efforts and plans to bring some sanity and ensure strict traffic regulations on roads have failed miserably as fatal road mishaps continued to claims high number of lives of road users.
J&K has attained a dubious distinction of losing more lives on its roads than in the terror-related incidents. The official statistics revealed that at least 9,126 persons have died and 75,616 injured in 54,742 road mishaps between 2010 and 2018 across J&K.
J&K has also been ranked second in India vis-à-vis road accidents with an average of over 900 deaths every year.
Official sources said a majority of road accidents took place due to rash driving, negligence of drivers and bad condition of roads, especially in hilly and mountainous districts.
A thorough study of major provisions of the ‘J&K Road Safety Policy’ (RSP) shows that the state agencies did little on ground to bring any significant change on ground so far. All the major provisions of the road safety policy have been either overlooked or no sincere efforts were made to implement them in letter and spirit.
It was envisaged that all existing and new roads would be equipped with standard traffic control features like signs, markings, crash barriers, delineators, etc, besides initiatives would be taken to upgrade major roads in the state and classify important roads as state highways. All these provisions were ignored wilfully.
In a recent meeting to take stock of road safety measures being undertaken across J&K, it was revealed that more than 80 unauthorised cuts had been made across the national highway, creating vulnerable spots for accidents. Besides, 33 black spots and 60 approach roads on the highway were accident-prone, which were needed to be addressed.
Yesterday, Lt-Governor Girish Chandra Murmu had reviewed the implementation of Road Safety Initiatives across the Union Territory and directed the officers to identify the causes of accidents and take effective corrective measures with regard to the black spots.
The ineffective implementation of the RSP has remained a major issue in J&K. Approved by former Governor NN Vohra in 2016, the basic objective of the policy was “to reduce fatalities and injuries in road mishaps by 2020, considering 2016 as the base year”.
Second in country in road mishaps
- J&K has attained a dubious distinction of losing more lives on its roads than in the terror-related incidents. The official statistics revealed that at least 9,126 persons have died and 75,616 injured in 54,742 road mishaps between 2010 and 2018 across J&K.
- J&K has also been ranked second in India vis-à-vis road accidents with an average of over 900 deaths every year.
