I was watching the news report of the accident involving a van taking preschool kids falling into a canal in Thiruvananthapuram. The general view was that the accident happened because the driver was speeding! Come on give me a break! That road (there was a root of a tree that had pushed up the road), the people around there who will never give their precious bit of land to broaden the road, the PWD which wont bother to make it safer, they are the reason it happened.. the driver couldn't have done more than 60 KMPH on that road, well that is reckless driving on those roads, agreed. But why are the roads in Kerala so narrow, just look at the statistics, how many people died on the roads in one year inside Kerala? People drive regularly at 120 KMPH in developed countries, is it that the land is cheaper there to acquire for widening the roads? No, I don't think so, it is just that the cost of a human life is so much lesser here. If any one of those who refuses to part with land for widening the road to ensure safer travel can just evaluate the cost of the life of their child, brother, sister, mother, father.... will it be worth the money they save in not giving that bit of land? Mind you it is not that the land is to be given away freely, there is a certain amount of compensation that they get... it is just greed.
Calling it an accident and blaming the driver alone for it is only passing the buck which is all that ever gets done here. When the rulers in the entire country are only busy looting where would they have the time to look at a hundred people dying daily on an average. Our senses are jolted only when that someone happens to be personally known to us, else it becomes a detached news item. But as human beings can't we extrapolate to know that it could and will happen to you one day unless you correct the situation that causes it. One must not wait to react only after it happens to them.
