ROAD
ACCIDENT IS NUMBER ONE KILLER.DISCUSS
Every year
the statistics of road accidents have been increasing and this is very
disturbing and alarming. Most of the accidents are due to the human errors. Some
too due to technical faults in vehicle maintainences and the conditions of
municipal roads and highways roads. The tragedies are unbearable and it is
depressing to see many innocent people died due to human carelessness and
recklessness. The figures triple up and worst still increasing more and more
during festive seasons especially when the enforcement operations are not in
operation.As the problem is becoming a great concern to the goverment. I think
there must be drastic measures to be taken and many definite reforms have to be
done immediately.
Most of the major accidents are caused by
human errors particularly speeding.The
are many inconsiderate and reckless drivers who like to speed up on the road
without caring the interest of other road users. Worst still, there are
irresponsible,tired, sleepy and drunk drivers who still drive and not bothering
the safety of other road users.These include those driving heavy vehicles such as container, timber lorry, trailer and
express bus and many more.They worked overtime to earn extra income at the
expense of other road users.There is no control on them especially the
employers who wanted to rake in more trips and profits forcing them to drive in
and out without adequate rest or break.These reckless drivers are not only
being overstressed and tired but being very
selfish and acting like the king of the road.They also bully the other road
users who are driving small vehicles and you can imagine what happen
next.Tragedies and tragedies happened went unnoticed by the authorities and
these drivers who caused injuries and sometimes death drive freely and openly
the next day as if nothing happened.
Ofcourse there are other human factors that
also contributed to the higher number of road accidents. These include bad
driving habits, impatience and disobeying traffic rules. As for bad driving
habit, these drivers are not giving signals when turning left or right,applying
immediate brake which panic the other road users,manning of telephone and sms(
short message system) while driving.These habits caused serious problems to
other road users.Some drivers are definitely impatient.You can see such
situations when the drivers are not
queueing up at the traffic junction and overtaking at double lanes.This
selfish act brought the anger and fury of other road users. On top of that, the
drivers also keeping the habit of
disobey the traffic rules that are gazetted. In this case, they parked
haphazardly at the wrong place and do not follow the signboards along the
road.They must definitely change their attitudes.Otherwise we may end up with
more and more accidents on the road.
On the other hand,there are cases of
accidents because of the poor road conditions. As we know, there are a lot of
roads that are not tarmac , uneven and
have many potholes. These all can lead to accidents as the drivers are not noticing
the problem that occur especially at night. Beside that, it can be considered
that the road design deficiency as one of the factors of road accidents as the
designer does not take seriously what will happen next along the highway such as landslides and
flood.Some areas do not have street lights which endanger the road-users.
Some places
do not have sufficient signboards to alert the motorists of danger ahead
especially of sharp corners and work in progress done by the maintainence
team.We hope to see more statistics of these accidents to confirm the higher
rates due to poor maintainence of vehicles and road conditions.This would be
good for the relevant Ministry to take appropriate actions.
Lacking of
enforcement of rules is another glaring factor which caused the higher accident
rates.Normal operations are only conducted during festive seasons usually two
weeks before and after.The police traffic and road transport department
officers are responsible for the enforcement but we never see them regularly
conducting operations during off-seasons.The excuse of not enough personnels to
man the operations are normal phenomenon.So more and more deaths will be seen
during off-seasons.
Conclusively,this
phenomena can be reduced only if the drivers prefer changing their attitudes
during driving and be more responsible to other road users. They must remember
that the tragedies can happen at anytime. Also they must think of the loved
ones at home when they are on the road.
