Incidents of fatal roads and vehicular accidents on the rise in Uttarakhand

The dreaded accidents of motor vehicles killing people on the spot is on the uncontrolled rise in Uttarakhand with not a single day left when incidents are not occured in this hilly state. There are head on collisions, accidents of buses, jeeps and cars falling in deep gorge, rash driving by unwary drivers, driving under the influence of alchohal, using cell phones while driving or over working hours that leads to their napping n finally fatal accidents killing innocent passengers for no fault of theirs.

Just yesterday a car heading towards Kotdwar from Shrinagar, Garhwal met with a dreaded accident killing three persons of Patti Jaintolsiun, Pauri Garhwal on the spot with injured dead bodies beyond recognition. The speeding car fell deep down in the gorge near historic Jwalpa Devi temple, near Dugadda, Satpuli yesterday.

The impact of the fall of the speeding car was so powerful that the car chasis has been badly smashed like a badly hammered vehicle making it shapeless and fully squeezed as a bundle.

The picture below is enough to prove home the point as to how serious and severe, the accident was.

Such accidents are very common in Uttarakhand with the killing of entire marriage party comprising of 45 people, on the spot, as witnessed few months ago.

The transport department of Uttarakhand and the concerned authorities has to take serious suo motto of such incidents and ensure that such accidents do not occur or at least reduced in future by way of giving adequate training to drivers, erecting precautionery signboards on every dangerous turns in the hill areas, strictly restricting the drivers to consume liquor and using mobile phones while driving and giving them limited or fixed hours of driving duties etc.

But it has been experienced that the transport department, the local police and the government of the state is least concerned or bothered to rectify the situation by being alert or duty bound on this front.

It’s shocking and anguishing to note that not a single or negligible number of deceased (s) killed in such accidents have been adequately compensated by the transport department of Uttarakhand government, despite the legal n constitutional obligations to do so. It’s primarily the responsibility of the state government to financially compensate the families of the deceased who are usually from the poor and economically deprived classes.

If we go by the figures of these accidental deaths, the statistics present a grim picture.

In the first eight months of 2016, there were more than a dozen deadly road mishaps in the hills of Uttarakhand. In all, there were 1075 road accidents in the first eight months of 2016 in which 641 deaths took place and over 1,000 injuries.

In 2015, there were 955 accidents in which 584 persons died and several hundred injured, most of them permanently disabled.

According to official data published in TOI earlier,, the number of road accidents has increased over the years.

In 2001, 698 people died in road accidents across the state and the number rose to 962 in 2016. In 2015, 913 people had been killed in road accidents while 878 lives were lost in road accidents in 2014.
Interestingly, in almost all the accidents, the drivers were locals, who are well acquainted with the routes. ”Some may be over-confident, others negligent,” revealed sources.

Often, drivers ferrying tourists make haste on these roads, trying to complete a 10-day package in eight days, resulting in such ghastly mishaps. Then there are those who are drunk or drive rashly. Overloading is another problem.

A drive from Rudraprayag till Kedarnath shows that the state government has also not done enough. At several vulnerable places, there are no crash barriers, which can be life-saving.