{"id":22111,"date":"2015-01-17T10:09:04","date_gmt":"2015-01-17T04:39:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/news.entecity.com\/?p=22111"},"modified":"2015-01-17T10:09:04","modified_gmt":"2015-01-17T04:39:04","slug":"government-runs-after-to-protect-their-seats-while-people-run-after-to-protect-their-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/entecity.com\/news\/government-runs-after-to-protect-their-seats-while-people-run-after-to-protect-their-life\/","title":{"rendered":"Government runs after to protect their seats while people run after to protect their life!"},"content":{"rendered":"

There has been an alarming increase in the number of road accidents in Trivandrum. It’s not just rash driving to blame for increasing death toll of road accidents in Trivandrum as faulty infrastructure and potholes play an equally critical role.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The incidents of people falling prey to poor road conditions are growing. The total death toll in the East Fort area alone in the past two years is 13. Although roads under CRIP are well maintained, roads in most localities remain broken and potholed for years. Thanks to the National Games, some major roads in the city have been repaired.<\/a><\/p>\n

While the departments\u00a0concerned are busy celebrating the \u201croad safety week<\/strong>\u201d, instead of taking concrete steps to minimize road accidents, the traffic police typically compile figures for the calendar year and then boast about the less number of deaths every year. In 2013 total number of deaths in road accidents in Kerala<\/a> was 4258 and last year it was 3655, a difference of 600.<\/p>\n

It sure is a good achievement but is it enough? The death toll is a grim reminder that the state government is still struggling to ensure the safety of people on the roads.<\/p>\n

\n

Taxpaying citizens deserve a better road and a better infrastructure.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

While improved road safety measures are the need of the hour, the government seems not to bother since they are more focused on hanging onto power\u00a0than protecting its people.<\/p>\n

If you are a resident of Trivandrum, you might have came across situations where you try to give way for an ambulance whenever you hear the siren but only to be overtaken by some minister’s cavalcade with an angry cop shouting at you.<\/em> \u00a0The high speed and the loud horns of these cavalcades can give you a heart attack. There were many instances where people got hit by some minister’s\u00a0escort cars. They have no respect for common man’s life or their time. Even the staff cars of high-ranking government officials behave as if they own the roads. This is a reflection of the Raj mentality and is antithesis of the concept of a democracy.<\/p>\n

Now let\u2019s stop blaming the government for a second and see what will happen if the government actually tries to do something. When a plan is put forward to widen the city roads or decongest a busy junction, then there will be huge protests from “tree lovers” who are worried only about how many trees that are going to be axed and not about how many human lives that are lost.<\/strong> Remember what happened at East Fort? Same fate can happen to NH-66 Bypass too.<\/p>\n

Vehicle densities in Kerala roads are overwhelming and their numbers are sure to escalate in the future. What Kerala needs is a better transport infrastructure. Widening of roads is not a long term solution. Government should implement mass rapid transit systems and encourage people to make more use of\u00a0public transport. Unfortunately, light-metro proposed for Trivandrum and Kozhikode are still in limbo.<\/a><\/p>\n

Do we have to resign ourselves to the fact that road accident is a matter of fate and that there is nothing we can do about this? Accidents on our roads are not predestined. These are accidents that can be prevented with a little safety precaution and a little common sense.<\/p>\n

Tail Piece:<\/strong> Believing that ghosts are causing the road accidents<\/a>, Karnataka police in Tumakuru performed \u2018shanti puja\u2019 to ward off evil spirits.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There has been an alarming increase in the number of road accidents in Trivandrum. It’s not just rash driving to blame for increasing death toll of road accidents in Trivandrum as faulty infrastructure and potholes play an equally critical role. The incidents of people falling prey to poor road conditions are growing. The total death […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22136,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[452],"class_list":["post-22111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-trivandrum"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/entecity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22111"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/entecity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/entecity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entecity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entecity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22111"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/entecity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22111\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entecity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22136"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/entecity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entecity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entecity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}