We are in a country of accidents. We are in a country where it’s actually a bit of a misfortunate thing to say that there are as many people as there accidents and swarms of cars and vehicles on cluttered roads. And one thing is absolutely true about India, regardless of whether one speaks about the crowded urban roads that play host to swarms of cars and bikes and cycles and buses or tempos or the Tier-II cities that are driven by the sense of aspiration and ambition and perhaps the ceaseless desire to do what urban India is doing:
And it’s that road accidents are all too common nowadays. That’s never a good thing. Can it ever be. The latest distressed piece of news comes to us from the Central most state of India, Madhya Pradesh where on a happy go lucky Sunday was rendered obsolete for the lives lost and their grieving families.
The following is what the revered Indian Express had to say on an accident that took away harmless lives and for no fault of theirs. It’s just so so unfortunate really! Sunday’s are also about sad items of news and deplorable instances that ring in distress when none need it.
Take a read of the following:
The deceased and injured, all residents of Padalghati village under the Bamaniya police station area, were headed towards the Mahi river to immerse ashes of a villager when the front tyre of the tractor-trolley burst and overturned, an official said.
“The incident occurred on Sunday morning at Dhaturiya village under the Raipuriya police station area, about 50 km from the Jhabua district headquarters,” said Anil Bamaniya, in charge, Kalyanpura police station.
He said the deceased men aged between 37 and 45 years.
“The injured persons were admitted to the Petlawad health centre for treatment,” Bamaniya said.
The driver of the tractor-trolley fled the spot after the incident.
A case was registered against him under various sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and the Motor Vehicle Act, the officer said.
Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan expressed grief over the incident.
But to add further, grief. That’s all. That’s all one can offer? No compensation, with all due respect tot he CM of the prosperous state of the country. Some lives were lost, many were injured. And importantly speaking, for no fault of theirs. How sad and emotionally wrecking might that have been for all? It’s about time that India does come out with something interesting and timely to intervene between the rising spate of accidents and the massive loss of lives that happens, truth be told, each passing year.
The only respite that we may have seen, if it could be said that way, then 2020 was the only year in the last half a decade where the incessant rates of accidents, which are anyways a recurring side in our country saw a nosedive of sorts. But even that happened at the back of a COVID-19 marked pandemic where one was simply not moving out of one’s house and was pretty much restricted in the confines of one’s domestic space, with the lockdown in full swing of things. But for how long can such epidemics be rested upon to see accident rates coming down?
A radical thinking approach is needed and is the need of the hour today!