Goan Highways to Hell

Ethel da Costa

Are we serious about strapping ourselves with safety seat belts in our four-wheelers or what? With the festive season almost upon us and tourists sharing cheek-to-jowl road space and fancy cars (pure madness during peak hours) with no clue where they are going, it’s time to observe that certain traffic rules do and can save our lives. Like using safety seat belts, which the Goa government must enforce on the double (fine them, revoke their licences, impound their vehicles, whatever) if you read what I have to say further.

I understand Goa needs her fair share of tourists to ensure that her economy is kicking on all cylinders. We need our propaganda that we’re a friendly state, and that drinking and merry making is synonymous with our culture. We need their dough, let’s be very blunt here. We need their plastics to run our five star hotels and shopping centres. We need their starry eyed, open mouthed yuppy wonder which helps our tourist taxis fleece their pockets (how else will they make their money and pay their bank loans, right?) like they were stranded on Mars and need to get back to Earth. We tolerate their ogling, and the way they make a nuisance of themselves in our discos. All’s fair in money making, even a little dishonesty. What is absolutely not fair, and I strongly condemn this vehemently, is drunk tourists on roads causing a nuisance of life by forcibly endangering the lives of other safe drivers and their passengers. Not only should they be booked and beaten black and blue, but banned from driving/riding for the rest of their lives too.

I narrate an eye-witness incident that not only had our hearts literally in our mouths, but gave the kids in our car the fright of their lives.

We all know the state of our roads after 9.00 pm. Proceeding to South Goa on one late evening, we were accosted by two totally drunk tourists off Bambolim on a Yamaha motorbike. Immediately sensing caution, we slowed down keeping a safe distance between the drunks and our car. Pissed out of their brains, they proceeded to swerve dangerously from one end of the road to the other, irrespective of oncoming traffic in the opposite direction. When repeated honking to catch their attention didn’t work, we proceeded to slow down traffic behind us with warnings of the two raving drunks in front of us. They missed hitting a car (for sheer reflex action by the other driver) then another, and another, finally hitting the side railings on Siridao bridge. A screech of hot tyre meeting gravel, a flash of sparks as metal skid off the road in motion, and two bodies sprawled on the road -- one with his knee cap dangling off his leg, the other out cold. Fortunately, the bridge being deserted at that time of the night, saved them from being hit by an oncoming car. We stopped our car, rushed out to investigate what we knew was coming all along and then reported the matter to the Agacaim police station. And no, we were not going to be good Samaritans (rather suckers to juveniles like these) and take them to the hospital. A crowd had gathered by the time we left.

Another close friend of mine recently met with an accident while heading back to Goa from Bangalore. His car was hit head-on by an oncoming truck, driven by a drunk manic. His young son traveling with him has a few broken bones, while another co-passenger died on the spot. It is a miracle that they lived to tell this tale.

I shudder every time I travel long distances and watch the madness on our roads. But nothing beats a drunk driver hitting the road with his own children in the backseat. We have enough cold statistics to prove that drunk driving is a horrendous crime. Given the state of roads, and the absolute lack of traffic sense in Goa, or for that matter in India, we have to doubly ensure that precious life is not cut short because there is a drunk criminal out on a death wish with his set of wheels. It’s unforgivable. There is no pardon. Such drivers should be banned from driving for the rest of their lives. You will agree that we already have enough criminals lurking around us in the guise of decent folks.

A recent study conducted by the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control and released in the Journal of the American Medical Association, confirms that an alarming 68 percent of children killed in alcohol-related crashes were riding in the car with a drunk driver. The study gives enough reasons to cause goose-bumps to stand on end. It reports that children younger than five years of age had a higher passenger vehicle death rate than older children -- Make that 3,246 child passenger deaths, of which only 18 percent of the children were restrained by safety belts! The startling report prompted the National Transportation Safety Board to propose increasing child and youth safety on the road with the use of booster seats, graduated licensing systems for younger drivers and zero tolerance of alcohol use by youth. I dread venturing to find out the accident ratio in Goa. Yet, what makes us so blasé that we no longer care for our own lives, and those of others? I’m told road rage is the emerging 21st century killer loose on our roads. Where are they all going? To hell?

I understand the government wants to ensure that crime is kept at its minimum, especially at sundown -- If you see all the cops looking mighty important while conducting their nakabandis. Just checking out the driver’s licence and asking him/her their names (when its obvious they should read, but can they?) is not half the job done. How about giving them alcoholometers to be used on the man/woman behind the wheels, to ensure that they won’t kill somebody on their way home? If found drunk beyond permissible alcohol levels, I would strongly say they should book them and show them the next best place to chill out – the police cell. No name dropping, no succumbing to Gandhi notes. Like that, not only will the police forcibly instill road responsibility, they’ll ensure less deaths on the road, and create a sense of awareness that road hogs can’t get away with murder. And while we’re at it, how about pulling up the RTO for cutting corners with rules. They have blood on their hands too, because the bribe money deadens their conscience. Time we ask all government agencies to do what they are paid for – provide service to the people who pay their salaries.

Ethel da Costa
January 21, 2003
 

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