The 14th Goa State Road Safety Week is being observed. Some people have rightly asked what is the use of such programmes if the roads themselves are not built properly. How can a safe driver handle a car or two-wheeler when the road conditions are so poor? Is it not the duty of the public to complain to the PWD or even take the engineers responsible to the consumer court?
To bring discipline among drivers, Goa needs AI cameras on the roads and proper traffic signals at all junctions. At the same time, engineers should be sent for refresher training in road construction, along with members of the Indian Road Congress.
Bridges and flyovers are often built without safety measures, which is a disaster waiting to happen. Just a few minutes of rain creates large pools of water on the roads. When one vehicle speeds through, the water splashes onto the windscreen of another, leading to the risk of major accidents. Drain pipes fixed along bridges are already coming loose. Water gushes down like a waterfall onto vehicles passing below. This is the poor quality of work by engineers who claim to be building roads “better than American roads.”
If such negligence continues, Goa may face a situation similar to Nepal’s road disasters, and local representatives along with engineers will have to face public anger. For real road safety, we need not just the government and contractors but also active participation of citizen groups and activists.
Otherwise, Goa may soon “earn” the number one spot as the state with the poorest quality contractors, where kickbacks matter more than people’s lives. Even footpaths are ignored. In Porvorim, during a recent ministerial visit, broken and misused pavements went unnoticed. Today, some of these footpaths are used more by pet owners to let their animals defecate than by pedestrians.
