As central government planning and funding patterns ( implemented without citizen consent by the state government) morphs Goa — from semi urban-semi rural, human-scale charm, into city-state urbanisation —- its residents pay a heavy price in losing a way of life.
A state credited for its quality of life, is now making a rapid and painful transition to a growing quantity of risk. One major indicator is the uptick in accident and fatality rates. Pamela D’Mello analyses the data.
Substantial monies poured by the Centre (Rs 25,0000 crores by one boast since 2012-14), for Goa’s mega highway infrastructure, (hyper-marketed at election time as major Industrial growth aka developmental landmarks of the present regime)—- has come with collateral hazards.
Fatal accidents claimed 91 lives in three months from Jan-March 2023, up from a corresponding 53 for the same period in 2022. Road accident deaths are now felling an average of a life a day in Goa, and three with grievous or minor injuries. These numbers are far more serious than its Covid-related fatalities.
Goa is pole vaulting into chaotic, planning-undermined, dizzying urbanisation and is thrust into massive road building, to catch-up with mainstream India, which achieved independence fourteen years before Goa. India, however, has a poor record of road accident fatalities.
The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways’ (MORTH) Transport Research Wing’s latest Road Accidents in India, 2021 report, states “Every year, approximately 1.5 lakh people dies on Indian roads, which translate, on an average, into 1130 accidents and 422 deaths every day or 47 accidents and 18 deaths every hour.”
It also says “at least one out of 10 people killed on roads across the world is from India, according to the World Health Organization.“
“Unfortunately, the worst affected age group in road accidents is 18-45 years, which accounts for about 67 percent of total accidental deaths,” it adds.
MORTH’s National Road Safety Policy recognises that “road accidents have now become a major public health issue, and the victims are mainly the poor and vulnerable road users.”
Goa Follows Dismal National Trend
Consider the following dismal statistics for Goa, which, sadly, has begun aligning with the national trend.
➤ Total road accident numbers have climbed from 2384 in 2020, 2851 in 2021 to 3011 in 2022, while 223, 226 and 271 people met a tragic end in corresponding years.
➤ While 2020 and 2021 were pandemic slow-down years, the upward graph for 2022 and 2023, indicate cause for worry as the economy speeds up and traffic courses onto the new asphalt infrastructure put in.
National Highways Most High Risk
➤ National Highways (that have seen major upgradation and augmentation in the past decade) also involves the highest risk for users. Forty-two percent (42%) of all accidents ;and 47 % of all road accident deaths in Goa last year, occurred on national highways, though they constitute just 2 % of road length.
➤ Seventy one percent (71 %) of all car/taxi/vans/LMV fatalities in Goa last year, 49% of all pedestrian fatalities and 45% of all two-wheeler fatalities, occurred on the national highway stretches.
Speed breakers are not permitted on national highways as per National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) guidelines. Rumble strips can be laid as speed calming measures.
Straight, Open Roads Register Higher Accident Rate
➤ The argument peddled by politicians, that narrow roads are a cause of accidents, is a fallacy, often projected to justify road widening projects in villages, that benefit real estate and building construction projects, that need minimum 10 metre wide roads for higher FARs in village Goa.
➤ Truth is, statistics prove that road accidents are higher on wide, open, straight roads that have become race tracks for speeding vehicles. Consider this. Fifty-seven percent (57%) of all accidents and 63% of all fatalities that took place in 2022, were on wide, multi-lane national highways and state highways, though both constitute just 5% of total road length in Goa.
➤ Other roads (rural and urban roads, project roads) that comprise 95% of Goa’s road length, accounted for 43% of accidents and 36% fatalities. In 2022, there were 1705 accidents and 172 fatalities on national and state highways and 1306 accidents and 99 fatalities on other roads, amounting to a total of 3011 accidents and 271 fatalities.
Two-Wheelers and Pedestrians: Vulnerable Road Users
➤ Highway expansion and road widening, completely alters the vehicular power hierarchy and power dynamics on the asphalt, between bigger vehicles and smaller ones, non motorised bicycles and pedestrians.
Two-wheelers and pedestrians find themselves increasingly invisibilized and discounted by bigger vehicles on the road, in riskier driving and road situations, with larger vehicles ignoring their presence. In an accident situation, they sustain far greater damage and fatality risk.
➤ Cars/taxis/vans/light motor vehicles were involved in 44 % of national highway accidents in 2022, but sustained 16% fatalities. Trucks and buses were involved in 20.5% accidents but sustained 0.7% fatalities. In contrast, two-wheelers, who were involved in 34% accidents, sustained 62 % fatalities. Pedestrian victims were 19%.
➤ The high two-wheeler and pedestrian accident/fatality percentage (they were involved in 34% of accidents on the national highways in Goa in 2022, but sustained 81% of fatalities) on national highways, is proof that highway systems privilege heavier/bigger vehicles, and take a heavy toll on vulnerable road users like two-wheelers/pedestrians.
➤ An alarmingly high 32 % of accidents in 2022 have been in residential areas, while 41 % have taken place in open areas, 23% in market/commercial areas, and 4% in institutional areas.
➤ Two-wheelers are the most vulnerable section on the roads, sustaining the most accidents, fatalities and grievous injury numbers.
➤ Contrary to expectations, most accidents are in rural, rather than urban areas.
Over-Speeding Causes 91% Accidents, But Goes Unchecked
➤ Over-speeding and dangerous driving is the major cause of accidents and deaths, responsible for 91% of accidents and 88% of fatalities in 2022.
However, it goes vastly unchecked. The state government admitted to the Assembly last month, that over the past three years, it was operating with just 13 speed radar guns between 10 traffic units in the state.
Instead, traffic safety drives in Goa tend to focus overwhelmingly on low hanging fruit and soft targets, collecting Rs 3 crores in annual fines largely from two-wheelers/LMVs for helmets, seat belts, checking licence papers, etc.
Over-speeding, meanwhile, continues on the state’s streets, including in rural village Goa, with virtually no checks.
Outstation, drive-in-drive-out tourist vehicles or hired vehicles, navigating blind on unfamiliar terrain, are not mandated or handed even a basic advisory, to maintain/respect host-state traffic culture in Goa — drive cautiously though village streets (that have a high two wheeler population and multiple users, including senior citizens and school children); maintain slow speeds, maintain lanes, etc —- leading to the highest accident rate from this category.
Goa’s tourism sector (annual domestic tourist visitors number five times the resident population of 1.6 million, as foreign tourist numbers decline in favour of domestic visitors), envisaged to be a non-polluting industry —- now generates a disproportionately high vehicle load on the state’s streets. The state government attempted in the past to reduce this traffic segment with an entry tax and in its 2023 budget has proposed a green cess for the same.
Expanding Road Network + Rising Motorization = Increased Traffic Risk
MORTH’s report recognises that rising motorization and an expanding road network increases traffic exposure and therefore traffic risks, with less affluent sections, the most vulnerable and at risk.
Significantly, Goa Budget 2023, has allocated further monies to road network expansion. This is in sync with the global/industrial development model being followed — augmenting road and other infrastructure to facilitate supply chains in coal, iron ore, raw materials, natural/manufactured produce, besides enabling industrial mass tourism, real estate development and entertainment/gaming hubs, across greenfield, rural areas. Zoning recommendations, in towns and villages, are ignored.
However, what is evident, is that while the government is at breakneck speed, foisting urban systems on rural areas, including speed-friendly roads — it has totally inadequate systems, besides not committing sufficient monies, to reduce traffic risks and hazards that citizens find themselves rapidly exposed to.
For one, highways have grown from existing state roads which connect populated towns and therefore, currently serve office goers and residents.
Highway augmentation of these roads have brought in increasing outstation and through-traffic heavy goods vehicle traffic.
A road augmentation infrastructure model that puts heavy, interstate traffic and residential traffic, including office-goers and school/college children — on the same carriageway —- is an inevitable set-up for tragedy.
Ditto, with the current thrust and massive funding by the central government, towards widening internal rural roads, that wind around clusters of residential areas, all across the state.
With this, Goa’s large middle class population —-reliant on private transport means of two-wheelers and small LMVs — now find themselves invisibilized and downgraded in the new power hierarchy on the road; vulnerable and at risk, in their own towns and villages.
Poor Public Transport System
With a small sixteen lakh residential population, public transport in the state has wallowed in administrative neglect, a patchy, erratic system that floundered on for years, with overcrowded private buses, limited connectivity and hours of operation. It is a system that has left high school and college students, with no alternative, but to use two-wheelers to access education.
The government in Budget 2023, has promised a comprehensive mobility plan, multi-modal transport system, and a revamped Kadamba Transport Corporation bus system. Assuming it gets off the drawing board quickly —- the challenge will be to sustain long enough to build consumer confidence and convince commuters to abandon private transport.
Inadequate Safety/Hazard Management Systems
MORTH has suggested a long list of systems and mechanisms to reduce accident hazards and increase road safety. However, it is outside the scope of this article and therefore unclear, if the allocation of funds for mitigation/safety/management measures, have kept pace.
In Goa, it certainly hasn’t, as a perusal of the minutes of several Road Safety Council meetings, indicate.
Road safety works in Goa, placing marked speed-breakers/rumblers, under-passes, over-bridges, flyovers, crash barriers, zebra-crossings, adequate signage, parking bays/facilities for trucks, rectification of black spots, etc. — all face funding shortages and delays in implementation.
One Road Safety Council meeting, has red flagged potential risks from 500-600 trucks expected to move to and from Mormugao Port Authority.
Another meeting complained that MORTH’s move to increase permissible load for goods carriers, failed to consider hilly terrain, steep ascents/descents and bad road conditions.
Laying out the asphalt may be a contractor’s dream, but a state-wide staff shortage of traffic police to regulate it, increases risks to commuters. Also red-flagged, are the high proportion of self-accidents, caused by mismanaged stray cattle and pot-holed/bad condition/badly engineered roads.
The high fine regime under the 2019 Motor Vehicle Act, proposed as a deterrent to bad driving practices, has had mixed results.
Currently, the Goa government’s solutions are manyfold.
On directions of a Supreme Court Committee of Road Safety, the state notified a Goa Causes and Analysis of Motor Vehicle Accidents and Wayside Amenities on Highway Scheme 2021. It provides for a Road Engineering Committee, and sub-panels to assess accident zones. While the blueprint is in place, implementation is the issue.
While the administration has indicated it might take on more traffic police personnel, it is also keen to enlist Road Safety Patrols, traffic warden schemes and road safety management committees across 190 village panchayats.
In keeping with Niti Ayog’s directives to farm out operation/management/maintenance of its government properties/services to the private sector, the state government has proposed privately run AI-run signalling and speed-limit monitoring cameras on highway sections, hoping automated fines will act as a deterrent to over speeding.
What is clear though, is that the oft-repeated narrative of transferring blame onto dispossessed, devalued local citizens, high vehicle numbers, unsafe driving practices, mobile use, helmet/seat belt non-use —- is just part of the picture.
It is one thing to modernise and expand roads. However, unless adequate systems to manage modern roads and highways —- are set-up (without turning into a money-spinning opportunity for insider private players) —- the hazard exposure to commuting citizens will remain a blot.
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