In one of the major accident which took place between passenger bus and container truck left almost 35 injured out of which 16 are seriously injured and 1 is in critical condition. According to the available sources the private passenger bus “SAIDHAAM” traveling on the Ponda – Kahdepar highway, proceeding towards the Collem was hit by the container truck travelling on the opposite direction resulting into huge impact on the but leaving one 35 injured.
The injured were admitted to the nearby ID hospital and 16 were shifted to GMC due to serious injury. There are conflicting statements of the spectator pertaining to this accident as one of the spectator told that “I was travelling right behind the container truck and truck was in position to overtake the bus which supposedly applied the sudden brake (as they do habitually drop and pick up passengers in the middle of the road) truck could not manage to negotiate the overtake since another vehicle was coming from opposite direction and rammed into the bus, the impact was so heavy that bus went ahead and truck overturned”
Subsequent to the accident there were instant ripples of reaction on the social media blaming the government and the police department for their inefficiency over not controlling the overloaded busses which are halts anywhere in the middle of the roads with no proper regulations. One of the FB users wrote that “Mini buses are always overloaded, over speeding, overtaking, drivers and conductors are not well experienced and some of them don’t even have licenses and they never issue tickets. Police is happy collecting the monthly installments from each bus. Police do not keep the watch on irregularities in the buses but they are busy issuing challans to two wheeler riders for not wearing helmets and four wheeler drivers for not putting the seat belts”
Seriously it is open fact that private buses in Goa do not have any rules and regulations to follow. How many times you observed that drivers stop their busses in the middle of the roads just to collect the passengers and in some cases they even drive in rash manner to reach first to the next spot to collect more passengers and invariably majority of the busses are always overloaded. How many times traffic police issue challans to them? How many times police turns blind eyes towards these illegal activities? When this system of anywhere stopping and pick up of the passengers will stop? This setup needs to be changed and action needed to be taken against the bus owners and drivers who ply buses on various routes in Goa. Please do not forget to leave your comments and suggestions on this issue.
Source: Various sources
Image Source: whatsapp and social media
Edited by: Goa Prism News Desk
