Safe Travel

Editorial:-
Road mishaps normally go up in the prevailing weather. Everyone is in a hurry to reach the huddled warmth of homes, visibility tends to be low, the road relatively smooth and policing difficult. Although news-reports of road accidents have noticeably come down, that is perhaps more due to reduced traffic on the roads than safer driving conditions or habits. The reasons mentioned earlier still hold and contribute to every accident. These factors, added to the still dubious driving skills sitting behind most wheels, remain a worrying concern. While in a perfect society, everyone would drive responsibly, Sikkim should leave that option for the time when Utopia is attained; till then, the roads require stronger on-street interventions to back the on-table policy initiatives already undertaken. The policy decision making it mandatory to have drivers with licences from outside Sikkim re-evaluated for the Sikkim roads before they drive public carriers here was an intelligent piece of legislation. It needs to be applied more responsibly and what is also required now is more practical and vigilant monitoring of on-road conduct. The traffic police personnel are among the most over-worked in the State, so, to begin with, it would be a good idea to increase their numbers. The flagrancy with which traffic rules are violated on Sikkim roads when there are no traffic cops around is embarrassing hence more of them should be deployed. Since most of the road-space is occupied either by taxis or government vehicles, any sensitization effort should address them first. Given that most taxis operate as share-cabs, their driving habits need to be amended. Taxis moving downhill, whenever their engine makes allow it, roll down with the engine switched off. The ignition is not fired not to save the environment but to keep the running costs low. In the bargain, they make the travel riskier. Because they are moving on momentum, they resist the need to slow down till the last moment; they swerve a lot and are ill prepared to make sudden adjustments [many bruised knee passengers will attest to this]. What is worse, this becomes a habit and it is not rare to have a taxi spring out of the fog in sudden silhouette even after dark. The road sides at night are claimed by parked vehicles and in such cramped highways, accidents could, and do, happen. Also unnerving are the impromptu driving classes that taxi drivers tend to give whenever the traffic appears to thin. Nervous arms stretching out from the front passenger seat while the driver chats with someone at the back are actually priming for a collision. Sikkim should count itself lucky that not too many of these happen. Then there is the all round ignorance on speed limits. The turns and curves of hill roads used to keep maximum possible speeds within in-control limits, but the improved torque of new engines thumbs its nose at these past natural controls. Vehicles can accelerate to frightening speeds on any stretch nowadays and near head-on collisions are frequent on any reasonably long drive. Control is inversely related to speed and since it is the former that is required, the latter should be checked more efficiently. The traffic police personnel do a commendable job of managing the traffic, those above the personnel on the highway should plan ahead and bolster their strengths to make their performance even more effective. It is obviously their limited strength which keeps traffic personnel away from the real highway, save when the document verification exercises are undertaken. Up-to-date documents do not avert accidents, regular monitoring of in-motion vehicles could…