Society concerns road safety

On August 7, 27 people died when a bus carrying Indian passengers met with an accident at Ainapahiro in Ambukhaireni Rural Municipality of Tanahun. As soon as the rainy season begins, the news of road accidents in Nepal comes one after the other.

According to the data of the Ministry of Physical Infrastructure and Transport, there are about 24 thousand vehicle accidents in Nepal every year. Traffic Police data shows that in the 10 years since the financial year 071/72, about 24 thousand 100 people have died in 258 thousand 713 road accidents. During this period, more than 200,000 people were injured. Experts claim that the main reason for this incident, which kills 8 people and causes thousands of dismemberments, is the negligence of drivers, lack of vehicle maintenance, natural disasters, lack of traffic awareness, and the policy and infrastructure of road safety.

"Road safety is not a priority for the government," says Saroj Sitaula, senior vice president of the National Federation of Nepalese Transport Professionals, "It is a natural situation for roads to become weak due to rain." But the way accidents are happening, it can be minimized. Last Sunday, when the Mahakali transport bus had an accident, it was saved from falling into the river due to the fencing on the road. We have been raising the issue of road safety for 20 years. We have been raising our voice to build similar road infrastructure all over Nepal. But the government has not made this issue a priority. According to

Sitaula, there should be warning boards and signs on the road, and the lack of them has left drivers confused. While coming from Pokhara to Kathmandu, there was an accident in Ambukhareni and the vehicle fell in Marsyangdi. Sitaula, who is also a member of the working group formed to study the Simaltal bus accident, opined that the relevant agencies should play an effective role for the effective management of vehicle accident reduction including disaster management.

In the report submitted by the task force to the Minister of Home Affairs, Ramesh Akhtar on July 22, the main cause of the bus accident is the construction of a rural road on the highway without paying attention to the environmental aspect and the fact that the integrated information system is not in use on the road. It is mentioned in the report that the rural roads were recently dug without proper engineering and design in the steep hilly area above the accident site, which contributed to the landslides on the roadside.

Road safety expert Ashish Gajurel, who is also the executive director of the Nepal Intermodal Transport Development Committee, says that the condition of roads built to connect villages without following road engineering standards is very bad. There is not even one lakh kilometers of road network in the country. Out of that, 23,000 roads have been built through the department. These are largely made using engineering standards. He said that as the rest of the roads were built only to connect villages without following the standards, there were not many things in terms of safety on those roads. He claims that this is the main reason for the accidents that happen one after the other.

'The road safety fence has not been installed, most of the roads have potholes, some of them have the problem of rocks and landslides falling from above, in some cases there are not enough turns to turn the car on the winding road,' Gajurel said, 'people, bicycles, motorcycles, cars are all on many roads. They walk in the same place. There is no discipline in the passengers either. Fewer vehicles are plying, the state does not have an efficient mechanism to check the condition of the vehicles. The driver has no skill, no psychology to drive safely. Because weakness is weakness, road accidents keep happening.' Gajurel also pointed out that the death rate is high because there is no immediate rescue mechanism after the

accident. Although there are various challenges, the police Senior Superintendent of Police Jeevan Kumar Shrestha of Kathmandu Valley Traffic Police Office said that he is taking all possible measures for awareness and road safety. He said that along with traffic signals, there is a lack of various road infrastructures and digital technology.

"In fiscal year 080/81 alone, we made 477,000 people participate in the road safety awareness program, imparted information about traffic rules," Shrestha said, "We gave priority to mapsey and lapsey checking." We also did mechanical checking of the vehicle like headlights, sidelights on/not, wheel condition, spare wheel/not. As a result, compared to 079/80, road accidents in the year 080/81 decreased by 16.8 and the death rate by 6 and the injury rate by 3 percent.' Shrestha said that road engineering, awareness, rule compliance, environmental aspects and the economic aspect connected with the road network are important aspects of traffic management. Director General of Transport Management Department Uddhav Prasad Rizal is of the opinion that the roads will not be safe only through policy decisions and the efforts of the Center and the local community will have a major role in this. "From building roads to regular maintenance to updating the vehicles that drive on it, the traffic is also concerned, keeping technology on the road, issuing alerts, forecasting the weather in advance helps to make the road safe," he said, "The geographical structure of Nepal is difficult and full of mountains. Because even if we want to, we cannot maintain 100 percent quality.' "Especially, the public transport sector should be a service sector under the responsibility of the state, not a profit-making sector," he said. Businessmen do whatever they can to make a profit. It is profitable to drive a car without maintaining it, it is profitable to find a cheap or low-wage driver, it is profitable to load more, to put more passengers in the vehicle, that is what he does.'

The then Council of Ministers decided to establish the Road Safety Council in August 2013 with the aim of reducing accidents by creating national goals, objectives, policies and strategies related to road safety, but it has not started working actively so far. Experts believe that this shows that the state is not serious about regulating road safety, even though it seems to be of interest when the news of accidents comes out every year.

'There is no agency that works on road accidents and road safety and various agencies have been given authority in a scattered manner,' says Gajurel, a road safety expert, 'The Ministry of Physical Infrastructure, Road Department, Transport Management Department, Traffic Police, Municipalities are also working a little. . But there is no single agency that has the responsibility of road safety. A strong road safety council should be formed to ensure road safety.'