Road mishaps along the 4-lane on National Highway 29 are no longer rare but taking place with alarming frequency. An overwhelming number of road mishaps are caused by reckless and negligent driving under influence of intoxicating substances. Presumably, drivers under the influence of alcohol or drugs don\u2019t care for safe driving once darkness descends and when traffic personnel not present. In other parts of the country, even without prohibition, police patrol the streets, especially after dusk, to enforce the breathalyzer test on drivers. The instrument tells whether a driver has trace of alcohol and if it is beyond permissible limits then police will take action as necessary. If this can be done in states which are wet or where there is no prohibition law; it stands to reason that such checks need to be seriously considered in Nagaland where prohibition is supposed to be in force. In addition, there are also several factors which have contributed to all too frequent mishaps along the 4-lane highway. One is that the NH 29 has no side road or service road on either side for parking. Random parking has caused many mishaps and continue to pose serious danger. Service road(s) provide parking for vehicles to access places parallel to the highways. Vehicles randomly park on the roadside of the NH 29 and effectively reduce it to single-lane. Speeding vehicles hit other cars or trucks parked by the roadside ahead, especially at night in many cases. Also, there are far too many road junctions along the NH 29 connecting various colonies and villages. Unless manned by traffic personnel, most mishaps happen at these junctions. To greatly reduce risk along this \u2018Accident Lane\u2019 it is time for traffic police to wrest the initiative by strict implementation of various rules. It may be noted that the Parliamentary Standing Committee on transport, tourism and culture recommend stiffer penalties besides amendments to the Motor Vehicles Act to prevent road accidents. The committee has recommended that drunken drivers causing deaths, be prosecuted for culpable homicide not amounting to murder (rather than under the lower offence of rash or negligent driving). Many drivers who have got away with murder (driving under the influence of alcohol and causing deaths on the roads) , continue to drive after paying a little money. The committee has also recommended that a driver committing the same offence will pay heavier penalty and imprisonment and be barred from ever obtaining a driving license. Effective implementation of the M.V.Act can be possible if the records of accidents are uploaded on the national data base, which can be accessed by various states. The process of obtaining driving license has to be more stringent as in other cities where those who complete the training are issued only a learner\u2019s license. Underage drivers as well as those who simply obtain driving license without having passed the medical and driving tests should be screened and their licenses suspended. A data base on drivers involved in various mishaps ranging from minor to major accidents should be uploaded in computers and the data bank accessible by all the district transport authorities. Thus, a multi-pronged strategy has to be followed to instill civilized behavior to remove the Khushi-Khushi syndrome so as to make travel along NH 29 safe and comfortable.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Road mishaps along the 4-lane on National Highway 29 are no longer rare but taking place with alarming frequency. An overwhelming number of road mishaps are caused by reckless and negligent driving under influence of intoxicating substances. Presumably, drivers under the influence of alcohol or drugs don\u2019t care for safe driving once darkness descends and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[685],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-410175","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editorial"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=410175"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410175\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=410175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=410175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=410175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}