Two young students died in a deadly road accident along the National Highway at Tengpora Bypass in Batamaloo Srinagar while another one was injured on Thursday as their vehicle overturned after colliding with a couple of other vehicles on the highway. The victims are from Lal Bazar and Sanat Nagar area of Srinagar while the injured one is from Nowshera Srinagar. All three boarding the vehicle are believed to be students.
The road accident and subsequent deaths have shocked every one. While people are expressing sympathy and solidarity with the families of the young ones, a bigger question, amid the mourning arises, are the parents behaving responsibly when it comes to allow their young children to drive on already accident-prone roads of Jammu and Kashmir.
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Chief Minister Omar Abdullah while expressing shock over the incident and expressing sympathy with the families of the dead has raised a genuine concern – “Our cars get quicker, our roads get better but our road sense shows no sign of improving. Speed thrills but it kills with no remorse. Traffic rules are there for a reason, they keep us safe but only if we follow them,” Abdullah posted on X.
Roads in J&K have become killer ones as reports about mishaps, deaths and injuries are published in newspapers almost on daily basis. There is hardly any day when someone doesn’t die or get hurt in some traffic accident. The roads in Jammu and Kashmir have become death traps. Every day we talk about deaths and injuries in road accidents and every day we discuss loopholes that characterize the traffic management in 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 and Traffic authorities — everything has conspired to make J&K a terrible place in terms of road accidents. 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 on the roads and streets here has become a massive security hazard.
Road accidents, it goes without saying, are 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 into virtual death traps. There are about seven hundred thousand vehicles in the UT which make it absolutely high number if other factors are also taken into consideration. The roads which are considered backbone for the proliferation of vehicles in any state or country, have become so constricted in the state that pedestrians find it hard to get along a road without fear of being hit by a passing vehicle. Hilly roads are another peril – not only are they in bad shape in terms of engineering, the public vehicles ply on them without any checks, which adds to the dangers.
The reckless driving is the main reason behind such mishaps. Transport authorities are issuing driving licenses, permits and fitness certificates without taking the requisite qualifications into consideration. The indiscriminate issuance of driving licenses to those who do not undergo proper trainings and subsequent tests for securing the licenses as per the rules makes the mess more striking. Over-speeding is emerging as a menace particularly on highways and the concerned department need to check it properly and efficiently to save human lives.
