inam ul rehman
On November 14 two teenagers were killed in a road rage accident, and as expected, no one wants to take the responsibility. Eight days prior to a teenager was killed and two other teens injured in a similar case of road rage at Lawaypora, Srinagar (https://www.greaterkashmir.com/city/teenager-killed-2-injured-in-road-accident-at-lawaypora). 
Responsibility is something we Kashmiris often shy away from. Our officials are not ready to own up their failures. In this high-profile case of road rage, the buck is being passed around without any resolution.
Lack of traffic policing?
According to the SSP traffic police Srinagar, one of the accused in the road rage incident was counselled many times, yet there was no change in his behaviour. It should make the traffic police introspect: why is their counselling not taken seriously? And why would anyone take its counselling seriously when lax law implementation is a norm here?
I commute 35 kilometres daily to my workplace travelling from civil lines to the old city then to the suburbs. Before 9am I find only a single traffic policeman at the Natipora junction. And in these areas--particularly the old city and suburbs--police are virtually absent on the roads. In a rarest of rare cases, you will see the apparition of traffic police in the old city when LG convoy has to move. In the evening one notices traffic police’s presence in Lal Chowk, Dalgate, Rajbagh, and Rambagh area. Rest of the city is a traffic police free zone. In fact, for one year I travelled to north and south Kashmir without having any license and no one stopped me.
The SSP was not yet done, speaking to the GK, he said, “Minors are frequently seen driving to schools and colleges, with parental approval. Social media further fuels this dangerous trend as youngsters post videos of reckless driving and stunts online,” (https://www.greaterkashmir.com/front-page-2/tengpora-tragedy-sparks-debate-on-minors-driving-reckless-road-culture).
Spare Schools from policing
But where do schools fit into this picture? How are schools responsible for it? Already our schools are grappling with the drug epidemic. Now the SSP wants them to police the students! Schools are not meant to do traffic police’s job. As far as parents are concerned, yes, it is their fault to let children drive vehicles. Agreed.
But, tell us where was police when these minors were racing for 10 kms? Why was no policeman able to stop them on this road stretch? If social media fuels this road rage it again shows traffic police in a negative light of not arresting, seizing vehicles, forfeiting their parents license, and imprisoning them.
From the past 5 years we have been fed with smart city changing people’s experience of commuting. While smart city definitely added much needed pedestrian pathways, parking spaces, driving has become difficult. Then SSP traffic, Al Tahir Geelani, said that a control room will be set up to monitor traffic pressure, divert vehicles on alternative routes, adding, “The cameras would catch the violators if they jump the red light. The e-challan would be sent on the address of the vehicle owner along with a photograph as proof of violation”(https://www.greaterkashmir.com/srinagar/srinagar-to-get-33-intelligent-traffic-light-systems).
However, when journalists ask Srinagar traffic police about the start date of these traffic lights the standard answer is, it will be operational soon. Forty-eight months later this “soon” is yet to become reality (https://www.greaterkashmir.com/srinagar/srinagars-smart-traffic-light-project-jumps-deadline/).
In fact, the only functional traffic signal at Jahangir Chowk has also been defunct for the past one year!
RTO Kashmir’s platitude
On November 18, Regional Transport Officer, Syed Shahnawaz Bukhari, wrote a lengthy platitude. Exonerating traffic police and his own office from any responsibility, he writes: “The question, then, is not whether our roads are dangerous, but whether we, as a society, are serious enough about ensuring safety; not whether the enforcement agencies keep a round the clock vigil on nearly lacs of vehicles, but whether we abide by our duties. We must hold ourselves accountable”(https://www.greaterkashmir.com/opinion/road-safety-a-moral-imperative-not-just-a-legal-duty). 
Rather than telling how many licenses he has revoked for rash driving, number of license of parents forfeited or penalised for allowing their unlicensed colt to drive vehicles on the roads, we have RTO Kashmir giving us sermons on things which people already abide by. As commuters we mostly follow diversions even when policemen are not there, we abide by dividers when no monitoring is here. We ourselves give way to other vehicles without traffic police. Isn’t it commendable that without traffic police, traffic lights, and road encroachments, Kashmiris manage traffic movement?
Since the RTO Kashmir emphasises morality over better and effective policing, here are some facts for him.
According to traffic police Jammu and Kashmir data, 12,952 people have been killed in road accidents since 2011, an average of 996 deaths per year, or 15.7 percent out of 82,130 road accidents recorded. A staggering figure in a small population. But wait a second. The all-India average, according to the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, is 11.3. In spite of 23.7 percent households of Jammu and Kashmir owing cars, second only to Kerala, the latter has humongous road accidental deaths reported per year. Regionally, Jammu accounts for 68 percent of these fatalities, amounting 8,849 deaths (https://jktrafficpolice.nic.in/stats.html).
All these things indicate that Kashmiris generally prefer safe driving rather than sorry driving. If, as the RTO Kashmir, suggests, morality is lacking here, why does the Jammu region account for more deaths? If people have to take the onus of all responsibility, why should the government of Jammu and Kashmir pay the traffic police?
Encroaching roads
Wherever roads are constructed shops pop up making it difficult to ply vehicles. Isn’t it amazing to think how are shops allowed on both sides of the roads? Why isn’t construction barred near the roadsides? When any government acquires land for road construction why isn’t some spare land kept for future widening of the roads? The Srinagar Municipal Corporation never asks shopkeepers to keep car spaces. People start to believe parking on the roads is their birth right. As a result, a road of 30 feet gets reduced to 12 feet which creates traffic jams and accidents. Add to it vendors being allowed to stop anywhere they like.
Auction vehicle, imprison parents, forfeit licences, rusticate pupils
Jammu and Kashmir is a small place with wide enough roads. The problem is road encroachments, footpaths occupied by shopkeepers, no visible policing, and defunct traffic lights, and wrong parking. What is needed here is a little bit of traffic policing and strict implementation of road laws.
The Kashmir police should be brave enough to imprison the parents of the deceased, propagate the arrest and set an example. The RTO concern should also forfeit licensee of all parents involved in the accident. In fact, the police should seize all vehicles driven by colts, and auction them at half of the market rates. Men, experience says, forget the deaths of their loved ones sooner than the loss of their property.
Colts driving vehicles should be rusticated from their respective schools, but initiative should come from the traffic police.
We have enough “nice” policemen on the roads. We need fair and firm officials who uphold the law of the roads.
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