Almost everyday, the news portals have some or the other report on road accidents across the State being flashed, many of which are fatal. The lethal compromise on road engineering and safety codes by the government which endangers the life of Road Users, more so the Vulnerable Road Users, is nothing short of covert road terrorism. The root cause for Goa’s dangerous road conditions gets concealed behind a screen of Road Safety Weeks conducted from time to time by the traffic authorities.
Yet another Road Safety Week 2024 was observed in Goa, a few days ago, with hardly any respite from the chaos and fatalities on the roads. Some of us have gone grey with being doped with hope at public hearings and interactions on road safety conducted by the traffic management agencies. The mere formality and tokenism in the organising of these road safety shows can be seen in the type of activities and choice of the target groups. Politicians use such occasions to market themselves, while the concerned traffic agencies are only interested in decorating their activity reports and exhausting the share of the annual budgetary allocation. The Road Safety and Traffic Management Committee at the Panchayat level set up with much hype is now more of a decoration, devoid of any officially notified guidelines on its functions.
The road safety awareness programs hardly go beyond targeting school and college students or factory workers who are a readymade audience. It’s nothing more than talks, field trips or rallies with students marching on the streets and police breaking records in booking traffic violations. Amidst a chaotic and lawless environment on roads, one finds it difficult to understand how the setting up of selfie stations for students to take selfies with road safety heroes, field trips to Panjim’s intelligent traffic management system and road safety awareness clip competitions are going to improve safety conditions on Goa’s roads.
Sometime ago, in a ‘chai pe charcha’ among friends on road discipline, a parent narrated an incident about being stuck in a traffic jam on his way to reach his child to school. Being on a two-wheeler, and as it was getting late, he decided to ride his bike on the pavement and proceed further as the rest were doing. He later realized that he had set a bad example for his child. Some days later, being caught in a similar jam, he waited in the queue. The child was quick in prompting him to go along the pavement. Embarrassed, this parent used this opportunity to confess to his child that what he had done the other day was unlawful and will not do so in future, even if it would mean reaching late to the school. What he told his child was, “it will be better for us to leave home a little earlier.” How many such responsible or exemplary elders who will not compromise on road discipline are children privileged to find nowadays?
If, the objective of a road safety awareness campaign is meant to bring about a behavioural shift in young people, then it is obvious that the knowledge imparted in the campaign also needs to be reinforced beyond the school premises, in the homes and the community. How many of our young people have
such role models in their elders at home or in the community when it comes to road discipline?
The road safety hinges around several factors, which may involve the road alignments, road surface, banking of roads, service lanes, bus bays, signage, sidewalks, pedestrian crossings, carrying capacity, and so on, and thereafter the Road Users’ awareness, skills and discipline. Most of the IRC specified safety standards for road infrastructure and safety are terribly ignored or compromised. Tackling the causes for Goa’s unsafe roads in isolation from each other has become a convenient ploy to cover up governance failures and entertain the public with a blame game to dodge responsibility. The road contractors are made the scapegoats for corrupt governance.
When it comes to Road Users, their attitude and behaviour is as pathetic as the physical road conditions. Though it may sound harsh, the lunacy witnessed on roads is more about weaponisation of money power and technology by an educated illiteracy and idiocy. The ‘goykarponn’ of care, concern and compassion seems to have vanished on the Goan roads. It’s now the ‘might is right’ from India’s ‘cow belt’ which has taken over the streets, while ‘civility’ and the ‘right of way’ are probably considered an offensive legacy of colonial rule for a berserk nationalism. Can a supremacist, casteist and bigoted mindset conditioned to bully and lynch be expected to think and behave differently when on the road? What makes matters worse is the prejudiced and preferential treatment to offenders by the police and the political patronage to cover up or play down certain traffic offences.
Perhaps, we need to move beyond that populist fixation with over-speeding, rent-a-cars and drunk driving which is generated by the propaganda machinery of an insensitive government. To paint the ‘Outsider’ as villain, tourist or migrant, is nothing but a ploy by authorities responsible for road safety to deflect the blame for their own blunders. It hardly requires much expertise for a common man who travels on Goa’s roads to understand that the reasons for the deadly road conditions and chaos are primarily the failure of governance and corruption.
The dangerous road conditions cannot be seen in isolation from a societal collapse. The failure of society to self-regulate and self-discipline itself and its extra dependence on police to enforce law and order is a worrying sign. How can Goans expect a dirty tourism and corrupt governance to ensure secure homes and safer roads?
(The author has worked with community initiatives related to Drug and Alcohol Abuse Prevention, HIV/AIDs Prevention, Panchayati Raj, Anti- Corruption, Environment Protection and Social Justice.)