We feel pained in yet again voicing our concern over the causes of fatal and tragic road accidents, the latest one taking place in Nowshera in Rajouri district claiming ten precious lives and causing severe injuries to more than 37 passengers, some of them critically. Four of the grievously injured were airlifted to Jammu for treatment. The immediate cause of this mishap as made known, is due to over speeding of the vehicle and trying to overtake an army vehicle plunging in the process in a deep gorge. Over speeding, very often gets out of control when the driver intends to stop it seeing an imminent danger due to miscalculation, especially on hilly roads. If eye witnesses are to be believed, the driver in the burst of over speeding, could not see a motor cycle coming in the opposite direction while overtaking the military vehicle. Besides, when it is a sharp curve, both the grave blunders of over speeding and overtaking are bound to prove disastrous and very unfortunately, the inevitable happened. Did none from the passengers raise any alarm, caution or tried to stop the one at the wheels driving so menacingly and rashly?
Obviously, traffic Police, otherwise very often becoming the whipping horse and decidedly for cogent reasons too, however, cannot be expected to dot the entire breadth and length of the motor-able roads to monitor each and every vehicle so minutely that it can prevent a speeding driver even from repeatedly using mobile phone which distracted his attention from the road. What else can be done except amending the Motor Vehicles Act to make it more stringent both in imposing fine, cancelling driving licences and even raising the jail term for serious offences, using mobile phones and overcrowding the public transport vehicles being included at the top? Blaming the administration every time for not doing enough on roads to prevent accidents is fine but how could it attend to those issues which we as drivers, passengers and observers, must do ourselves all in our own safety ?
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