The death of popular folk singer Manju Mahat in a traffic accident last week in Kathmandu has once again brought home the high fatality rate in Nepal’s roads and highways. In the past decade road accidents have claimed thousands of lives across Nepal. According to the World Bank, almost 1.7 million people lose their lives in road accidents annually and developing countries contribute 90 per cent to the number of casualties, most of whom are youngsters. Nepal’s public transportation is badly affected by the over commercialised private sector that is an example of market failure.
Although the crackdown on drunk driving has reduced the number of traffic accidents, much more needs to be done. Poor monitoring, reckless driving, technical failure of engine, lack of proper traffic signals, and several economic reasons have turned Nepal’s roads into highways of deaths.
Here are the main causes of the high fatality rate on Nepal’s roads:
1. In the absence of proper monitoring, several old and overcrowded buses charging high fares run in rural areas that have poor roads. When these overcrowded buses have a mishap, the number of casualities is significantly high.
2. Influential cartels and committees running buses ensure that the drivers get away with minimum punishment, so there is no deterrence. It is cheaper for transportation companies to pay compensation to the victims killed in road accidents than pay for their medical bills, which has increased the number of people being run over by vehicles on purpose to kill them.
3. Public buses in Kathmandu compete for passengers by speeding recklessly and risking the lives of several others.
4. Reckless driving is also a result of the fixed minimum amount that drivers have to pay vehicle owners daily. This leads to increased time at bus stops to put in as many passengers as possible and they make up for lost time by competing with other buses on the road.
5. Most drivers work long hours which increases their stress levels while driving.
6. Most road accidents involve collissions between two-wheelers and public vehicles. The number of cheap but unsafe bikes on our roads needs to be reduced, and a reliable public transportation system must be introduced as an alternative.
7. Everyone - pedestrians, motorcycle riders and bus drivers - need to follow traffic rules so that people who make mistakes are punished irrespective of the size of their vehicles.