By Imkong Walling
It’s the New Year and with it comes pledges to keep and achieve. The convention has been to come up with resolutions— to get rid of a bad habit, instilling a good one or setting goals to achieve, which mostly happens at the individual level.
People helming policy-shaping positions or for that matter, public institutions have not been known to make community pledges for the year ahead. Seldom does one come across New Year resolutions that transcend individual boundaries, stuff that concerns the community, governance or public safety in general.
On that note, this column would like to highlight one area of public concern that deserves a New Year resolution vis-à-vis road traffic and safety. It also takes the liberty to add on to the points previously noted in the January 6 editorial (Snailing Traffic), while foregoing dwelling on the practicality of the 40-km/hour speed restriction since it is covered already.
First and foremost, the ongoing police effort to streamline vehicular movement on the newly laid Dimapur-Chümoukedima 4-lane stretch of NH29 has been commendable. From catching and reprimanding wrong-lane drivers to now curbing speeding on the stretch, it is indeed reassuring.
There are also however other concerns requiring the attention of the enforcement agency: parking on busy roads, use of seatbelts and helmets, using the phone while driving, hazardous over-taking, drunken driving, speeding, disregarding traffic police constables etc.
Besides, there are two other menaces tormenting commuters, drivers and residents alike— the unregulated use of high decibel customized mufflers/silencers, especially on motorbikes; and the other being the use of after-factory high wattage lights or blinding headlamps.
The enforcement agency should clamp down on these two menaces, too, as empowered by the Motor Vehicles Act. The MV Act forbids the use of any horn or silencers producing noise beyond the permissible 80 dB limit and using high wattage bulbs exceeding 60 watts.
Police action in the past to curb noisy motor-cycles have been small scale and no more than media publicity stunts, while there is no known record of a campaign to check the use of high wattage headlights.
This, however, should not serve as a discouragement as there was one road campaign, in particular, not so long ago, when the law eventually prevailed. The police should remember that it was able to rid vehicles of tinted windows even though it took quite a number of attempts.
With that same degree of persistence and firmness, it should not be impossible to not only curb earsplitting noise, blinding headlamps and wrong lane driving but also streamlining road traffic on the whole.
Nagaland has a terrible habit of making feverish starts only to sputter to a halt not long after and forgotten. But when there is a will, a start can be sustained. A willing and committed resolve to make the roads better managed and safer should also be in the list of New Year resolutions.
The writer is a Principal Correspondent at The Morung Express. Comments can be sent to imkongwalls@gmail.com
