Are Our Roads Our Death Snares? (In Goa - India) Poem by Bernedita Rosinha Pinto

Why are so many people, young and old
losing their precious lives everyday
due to accidents on our Goan roads:
the same roads which are so long and old,
so winding and bold yet so narrow in the villages,
so broad and crowded in cities
but accidents don't stop from happening ?

How can death be so meaningless
that as one turns eighteen years of age
they can get a driving license in Goa
and they start driving any vehicle on the roads
without having much expertise or experience
yet the policemen have no control
nor can they stop them as those drivers speed
past them so fast in those cars
with their tinted glass windows?

Why can people not visualize or think
that if they get in an accident
they will either get injured or killed
or if they injure someone he or she may just die
and in the courts of law and jails they end up
for an error they have caused with their rash driving?

Why is life become so unpredictable and perishable
that if a driver of a scooter or a motorbike is not alert
or if the driver of a four-wheeler is negligent
they always crash or dash into someone
and they either hurt or kill the driver
or the pillion rider who was not wearing a helmet
and he dies of head-injury
or the one who was not using the seat belt
succumbs to fatalities?

How can those truck drivers drive so rashly
and suddenly swerve in
and crash young couples and families
who travel on motor-bikes or scooters
holding their little babies
and either of the parent just dies
leaving the child so sad and distraught?

How can one ever avoid death in an accident
if suddenly there is a head-on collision
with another vehicle and there are no air bags
to save lives when one car driver bangs
into another car while over-taking a huge bus
and the width of the bus does not permit the driver
of the small car to view the oncoming vehicle
and as a result a harsh collision occurs?

What is the safety of pedestrians
who get knocked down by overtaking vehicles
and they either get flung fifty meters away
from the accident sight or they get dragged
on the road before the truck-driver realizes
that his negligence has knocked down someone
yet he still kept driving;
and then he tries to run away from the accident site
knowing that a mob of people are going to give him
a good beating for killing two young people
or a couple in the accident he has caused
due to his reckless driving?

How can this nightmares of accidents ever end
which are actually so real as they keep occurring
and recurring everyday on our Goan roads
that such pathetic sights of either the injured
or the dead getting rushed by ambulances
to hospitals are such regular sights
yet no one takes any precautions or steps
to stop these brutal accidents which are so rampant?

Can the driver at the wheels not choose to be
prudent and discreet so as to avoid accidents
by driving cautiously and by obeying traffic rules
as every morning when people get out for work
they are not sure if they will return home
or if they will lend in a hospital or a morgue;
so can every motor-vehicle driver not remember
that every life is valuable whether young or old,
whether rich or poor, every person is precious
to the unit called the family tree.