SHILLONG: The Shillong-Jowai road is definitely picturesque and thousands of people travel on the road every day but it is also considered to be one of the most risky roads due to high speed driving which is very common.
A drive on the road by a group of journalists revealed that many vehicles including night super buses drive randomly without bothering about anyone’s safety and the excellent road condition gave more wings to the drivers to test their driving skills by putting other’s lives at risk.
It was seen that trucks, night super buses and even small cars do not bother for other vehicles coming from the opposite direction while overtaking which often leads to accidents.
Half of the road which is around 60 kilometers falls under the jurisdiction of East Khasi Hills Police and half falls under West Jaintia Hills police.
During the drive, it was also seen that most of the vehicles do not use their indicators for signal as to which side they are going and take turns without any indication.
Speaking on the matter, outgoing SP of West Jaintia Hills, R Muthu said that the police are now using alcometers to check drunk driving besides their personnel do conduct checking on the road.
He, however, said that police actions are more of a preventive measure and at the end it is the drivers who have to think on behalf of others apart from thinking about themselves.
The District Police last year organized a series of awareness programmes in schools and colleges and offices but it seems nothing much has changed.
The outgoing district police chief added that the awareness for safety on road should be done right from the time of issuing driving licenses.
In addition, the road requires more caution signages and people need to be attentive while driving on the road as it has many blind curves and sharp angles.
The need to drive safely on the road is the need of the hour as accidents occur on the road almost every single day and people continue to lose their lives.
As per the statistics of Meghalaya police last year, 282 road accidents took place in the state in which 204 people lost their lives while 372 were injured.
