EDITORIAL : THE DAILY MIRROR, SRILANKA

One for the road

The Transport Ministry is planning to introduce tough legislations including increased prison terms and fines on drivers and compensation for victims of road accidents, we hear. With many expressways coming up it is a timely move indeed…and “an effort to stem ever increasing road accidents and resultant deaths and injuries,” according to the subject Minister.

Good intentions. But the issue is far more complicated than just enacting laws.

As a first move the government should get rid of the old colonial fine sheets that are given out at the Post Offices. One of the offences in those sheets include “Driving without clothing (shirt)!” The papers are generally yellow. It is high time new laws are brought in, of course.

And then upgrade the existing Highway Code to suite the current technological and infrastructural environment.

According to existing regulations 50km/h could be considered high speed! while listening to audio is also illegal. We hardly see any vehicle that does not come with a stereo set? Moreover, now even the budget cars come with surround sound systems and even TVs!

Then the through and through corruption in the motor traffic related government departments to the traffic constable on the road.

Some say a shrewd traffic constable could take home up to LKR 7,000 a day! And then the driving school and examiner nexus that pass the inefficient drivers while failing the good ones for not giving the santhosams!

There is more to this issue.

Any driver would vouch that the main culprits are the private buses and the three-wheeler rickshaws.

One thing is that these drivers are from an underprivileged class and naturally lack the refinement and the educational background. But they are given licences and it has an economic aspect to it. 

Then, these vehicles–another consensus - mostly belong to Policemen (Now call taxi cars too!) and therefore many do not respect the highway codes.

The fact is reducing road accidents is a complex problem. It has a social problem built into it. Our traffic wardens do not drive, neither do they own vehicles. Hence there is always a social tension inbuilt when the two meet. And then there is a class which expects the traffic warden to be their servant who drive around with the attitude “Do you know who I am.” So where do we start?

It cannot be “stemmed by just introducing tough fines etc. That may increase the revenue of both the traffic constables and the State. But would it reduce the number of accidents we do not know?

True enough road accidents are an increasing social, economic and health issue with five to six deaths from around 150 road accidents occurring a day in Sri Lanka, according to the data furnished by the Minister. That shows there is a lot of potential for revenue generation for a cash strapped government.

But here is the punch line, when the news was broken on the Daily Mirror website these were what most of the readers had to say.

“How about the Ministers and their security vehicles killing innocent people? Will the Ministers too be prosecuted? There can't be two separate laws, one for the so called VIPs and the other for the ordinary citizen for the same offence. How do you identify their cars when it does not even have proper number plates! Police should ensure that the new laws are applicable to the politicians too! Mr. Minister first try discipline your security goons.”