We have today, according to a recent report from the National Transport Authority, just over 400 000 vehicles on our roads. Little has been done to cater for the rising number of vehicles on our roads. We have road accidents every half an hour on our roads and it cost the tax payers lots of money.
It would be correct to say that the rule of the jungle reigns on our roads. Couldn’t this deplorable situation be changed for the better? The noise pollution makes by motor cycles and moped on our roads these days seems to escape the police’s attention and nothing is done about it to book these offenders under the traffic noise abatement act which is prescribed in the Road Traffic Act.
It could be observed that the Traffic police are not doing their job accordingly to arrest the mayhem on our roads, but an honest assessment of the lawlessness would force on us the following choice: impose a moratorium on car imports or drastically widen our road network and expand it to absorb the spectacularly rising vehicle population in our country.
If the choice is the latter, the necessary improvements should be effected speedily. Meanwhile effective short-term and medium-term measures need to be used to bring the road anarchy within containable limits.
There should be a law to compel errant motorists to pay the medical bills and connected expenses of their road victims. This would prove to be an effective deterrent to demon drivers who seem to be careless for life and limp, but we suggest that the liabilities of the erring motorists be made to increase in proportion to the severity of the offences perpetrated by them.
Besides invalidating driving licences of such offenders, they should be also called on to bear the funeral expenses of their victims in the case of fatalities.
The possibilities are numerous and serious thought should be given by the authorities to passing the necessary legislation to give practical effect to their proposals.
The law enforcement authorities have no choice but to adopt a tough approach in dealing with the traffic mayhem amid which we are forced to live.
In the case of mass fatalities on our roads, the possibility should also be explored of bringing the charge of manslaughter against the erring driver. Road indiscipline is unlikely to be curbed until such deterrent measures are consistently and speedily pursued.
Despite the obvious need to be stringent in the issuing of driving licences, we find that even the most hot-headed among the public are found to be eligible for such licences.
A glance at our roads would reveal that a considerable number of our motorists do not even seem to know the basics of good driving. Nor do they seem to know the basic traffic laws of the country.
This is the reason why a tough law and order approach needs to be adopted by the authorities in relation to this crisis on our highways.
How many more devastating tragedies would we be called upon to silently countenance? Only a few days ago, two people died in a road accident at Flacq.
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