Over two-thousand persons get killed on an average in Jammu and Kashmir and authorities are yet to chalk out a strategy to deal with the problem. Even the former Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed too had expressed concern over the growing fatalities on the road. The issue was raised in the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly last year. The increasing number of casualties on the road are a matter of concern. Mufti had also expressed concern over the intensifying traffic congestion in the capital cities of Jammu and Srinagar, and had announced State Government’s plan to have multi-lane circular roads for Jammu and Srinagar to ease traffic jams and reduce the loss of life. Traffic congestion and accidents are every day happenings which common man faces in these two cities. The population of vehicles has also gone up but the roads and other infrastructure have not
expanded. What is needed is development of road infrastructure, better traffic management with more and more peoples’ involvement especially in the face of rising cases of underage driver’s deaths. Unless and until it becomes a peoples’ initiative to have safe driving sense and not allowing unwanted congestion the roads are going to remain dangerous for all users. Safe driving concept is a rare phenomena to see on Jammu roads, one can see two-wheeler drivers coming from any side, four-wheeler stopping middle of the road at their will and the worst is stopping mid of the traffic to pay obeisance to the deity, driving into traffic at breakneck speed are some of the instances one comes across daily. All this has got nothing to do with infrastructure but the practice of safe driving which is a rare commodity here.
