Not a single day passes when there are not any reports about the road accidents in the UT and about deaths and injuries due to these accidents. We have been witnessing horrible road accidents in both divisions of the UT consuming precious lives. The increasing road accidents need serious consideration by the authorities as well as those who drive on UT roads. There are so many loopholes that characterize the traffic management throughout Jammu and Kashmir. Be it faulty road engineering and pathetic condition of roads, or for that matter the reckless and mad driving by people on the wheels, or the lax attitude of corruption-ridden Transport department and Traffic Police — everything has conspired to make J&K roads into virtual death traps. Indeed if the frequency of traffic accidents, which is shooting up with each passing day much to the shock and awe of the people is any indicator, then it goes without saying that driving or for that matter even walking on the roads and streets here has become a massive security hazard.
If one goes only by the reported cases of road accidents, this new menace is taking a great toll on human lives now than it was ever before. Some years back stray incidents of road accidents would occur here and there in the state but now it is three to five accidents a day with the number of deaths and the wounded people at times exceeding the number of accidents which have turned the roads here into death traps. There are more than seven hundred thousand vehicles in the UT which makes it absolutely high number if other factors are also taken into consideration. The roads which are considered as the backbone for the proliferation of vehicles in any state or country, have become so constricted that pedestrians find it hard to get along a road without fear of being hit by a passing vehicle.
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Obviously, the government is lagging far behind in laying new roads so that the increasing flow of traffic could be regulated in a smooth manner without the roads getting congested, clogged or jammed for hours together. It is an ill-devised strategy to let the population of vehicles multiply unchecked to match the number of persons in the UT in absence of the roads. Then there is the problem of reckless driving. Nobody bothers to have any checks in this regard. Most of the commercial drivers are abysmally lacking in the knowledge of traffic rules which leaves them to use their faulty instincts to negotiate the nasty and abrupt situations, always leading to the death of many people aboard the vehicle or pedestrians. It is time to pay immediate heed to the matter so that frequency of road fatalities is brought down.
