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Reducing the highway death toll

The news of the tragic deaths of two women who were riding in a Trishaw on the Negombo Road, when a car driven at top speed ploughed into them, helps focus public attention on the grave and chilling dangers which are continuing to stalk our highways.

What compounds this unsettling highway tragedy is the disclosure that the car concerned had made a quick getaway. This, of course, denotes total disregard for the law on the part of the driver of the hit-and-run car.

It goes without saying that the motorist involved in the deaths should be traced and made to submit himself to the due process of law. Such incidents may not be rare on our highways where chaos usually reigns, but it is high time errant motor vehicle drivers, who evade the law, are brought to justice and made to face stringent penalties for their callous indifference to human life. Public cooperation is vital in these processes and it is up to witnesses to the incidents to disclose all vital information about the erring drivers - if they have accessed such information - to the police, to enable the culprits to be brought to justice.

However, there is also an urgent need for the police to upgrade their detection techniques and devices to enable errant motorists to be brought to justice in double quick time. In the West, for instance, there is the device of the highway spy camera which enables the police to close in quickly on the violators of the highway law. Although the installation of such devices here may be considered costly and beyond our means, the long and medium term benefits of the measure are such that going in for the device could be considered a worthy option. For instance, quick detection could reduce the chaos and lawlessness on our highways and help diminish the quantum of human and material resources needed for the establishment and maintenance of safe highways and roads. In other words, the national interest would be served by the use of the relevant sophisticated techniques, despite the high, start-up costs.

A vigilant and firm Traffic Police, could, of course, prove a very valuable asset in these circumstances but we are fully aware of the extent to which the police is overstretched. There is also the often highlighted issue of driving licences being issued to the "wrong" persons. It is our hope that the Registrar of Motor Vehicles would be busy, devising ways and means of eliminating this problem, which is contributing significantly to our road death toll.

It is also obvious that we are saddled with a highly unwieldy motor vehicle population.

Our network of highways and roads can no longer accommodate this burgeoning vehicle population. As pointed out in some quarters, we should expand our highway and road network or devise ways of reducing the number of vehicles plying our highways. We cannot be complacent about rising highway deaths.

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