Terrorism on the road; who cares?
It was interesting to see that the Private Bus Operators Union had decided to throw its collective weight behind one of the presidential candidates at the upcoming elections. It is this same union that admitted recently that its members drive their buses on ‘Ice’ – the stimulant drug even more potent than the methamphetamine ‘Speed’.
According to official Police statistics, for this year alone, there have been 32,560 accidents reported so far. The number of reported accidents is actually much more given that insurance companies now offer ‘On the Spot” cover which dispenses with the need to report an accident to the Police.
At a seminar last week, a UN-WHO specialist came out with some telling, though unsurprising figures. She pointed out that nearly 3,000 Sri Lankans died in traffic accidents in 2018 with an estimated death ratio of 15.5 per 100,000 population. According to the Police, the figure is already close to 2,000 in the nine months this year with more than 5,000 suffering serious injuries.
These are alarming by itself. And yet, because they are everyday occurrences they have become so commonplace that nobody really cares. They just remain statistics.
The country seems to have arrived at that stage of being anaesthetised to these figures much the same way people got accustomed at one stage to the numbers killed when an army camp was overrun or a massacre took place in a village during the insurgencies in the north and the south.
These ‘road kills’ seem to be of some concern at least to the Presidential aspirants. One of them (Gotabaya Rajapaksa) refers to this problem, but apart from having CCTV to monitor roads and giving compensation to the victims, there’s no reference to deterrent punishments. It is probably not a national security issue. Another (Anura Kumara Dissanayake), refers to the high rate of accidents but has no solutions to offer.
The UN official said she hoped this would be an opportune moment to raise awareness of these concerns considering the upcoming presidential election. Even if others did not think so, she thought it was a national crisis.
When the private bus mafia is able to lend its support to a candidate, it is like the National Rifle Association (NRA) in the United States backing a President in the face of a proposed gun control law. The same goes for the three-wheel drivers who have also banded themselves together in various unions. They too are vote banks – one in every 20 Sri Lankans is said to own a three-wheeler, and no Presidential candidate would wish to displease them.
It is an open secret that many private bus owners are family members of Police top brass and three-wheelers are owned by lower rankers. That is why they rule the roads – and enjoy immunity with a virtual licence to kill. Who will bell the cat, is the question – of an average of eight deaths per day on Sri Lankan roads.