Stop growing road accidents

Anil Sharma

Jammu:J&K’s traffic police blame the accidents on negligent driving on tricky and winding mountainous roads, while residents point out that paucity of public transport options has led to a surge in vehicle ownership, increase the odds of mishaps. Experts blame the growing road accidents on the sharp increase in the number of vehicles plying in the state. Transport authorities in the state also blame the hilly terrain for the high ratio of accidents and fatalities but the main problem is lack of enforcement staff. The Motor Vehicle department faces a huge manpower crunch, especially enforcement officers. Although workshops in schools and in public are being conducted making people aware about road safety, but still rash driving on highways, not wearing helmets and seatbelts increase the risk factor. In J&K, the emergency services and trauma care is underdeveloped. In the hilly regions, the traffic accidents are due to the poorly developed national highways, poor infrastructure and unattended hazard zones. The quick response teams are unable to deal with the accidents in a judicial and scientific way because of lack of knowledge. In J&K, the rate of traffic accidents is increasing day by day, but the development of emergency services is lagging far behind. As expected, the accident scene is chaotic since there are no quick response teams. To help victims, rescue efforts are made usually by the passers by and bystanders. The ill-fated unconscious patients, who are rescued by kind-hearted persons, but invariably untrained, are being mishandled to the extent that the gravity of injury increases in many cases. It is shocking to note that the number of people killed in road accidents in the state is twice of the number of fatalities — which includes civilians, security forces and militant deaths. The state government data reveals that last year alone, 908 people were killed in 5,529 road accidents across the state till November, another 7,250 were injured. In 2018, Jammu topped the list after the state witnessed 1130 accidents. This is followed by the district of Kathua, Udhampur and Samba. Surprisingly, more accidents take place in plain areas of the state. In the hilly areas, Rajouri and Ramban have reported the maximum number of cases in 394 and 252, respectively. In the Kashmir region, after Srinagar, Baramulla and Anantnag districts have reported most cases of accidents in 223 and 214, respectively. The lowest number of road mishaps occurred in the Shopian district of South Kashmir. The most commonly affected population in road traffic accidents are pedestrians, cyclists, motorcyclists and users of public transport.