The death of a 35-year-old man is the latest addition to our road accident statistics.
Ronish Kumar died after a road accident in Lautoka on Sunday night.
He was returning home after visiting relatives when a car collided with his vehicle at the Field 40 junction.
Yesterday, relatives of Mr Kumar were still struggling to come to terms with his death.
His uncle Raj Kumar said they were still trying to gather details of what had transpired.
That is the harsh reality of road accidents.
In an ideal world, this shouldn’t be happening.
In an ideal world, laws that govern road usage are supposed to keep us safe.
They serve as guidelines for all road users. They are designed to keep vehicles apart, specifically detail the speed we should be travelling at, clearly mark out options available for us from the right to pullover, coming to a stop, to overtaking on the highway.
They are there to keep us safe.
Unfortunately this isn’t always the case.
Accidents happen because we allow them to.
Recent accidents, including a fatal one that killed a man in Rabulu, Tavua in May, continue to attract attention.
Towards the end of the same month, two women died in a motor vehicle accident at Waimalika in Nadi.
They were passengers on a vehicle driven by a 43-year-old man heading towards Lautoka.
In June three people died in a horrific accident along Yaqara Flats in Tavua and a man died along Ratu Mara Rd in Samabula in Suva after an accident.
A 69-year -old woman died in an accident at Lomaloma while travelling from Savusavu to Bua at the end of the month.
She died while being rushed to the Labasa Hospital.
Police spokeswoman Ana Naisoro said in the latest accident, it was alleged that the victim’s car was hit by another vehicle driven by a 58-year-old man who was turning at a junction.
The victim was rushed to the Lautoka Hospital but was pronounced dead on arrival, she said.
As investigations continue, we are left to consider the turn of events and whether we are doing enough to put a stop to it.
Every year we have campaigns that target road safety issues. Yet every year, we still stare at a brick wall as accidents continue to happen around the country.
It isn’t going to be an easy task putting a stop to road accidents.
However, we must raise our level of awareness in terms of road safety to minimise this.
Common sense factors quite heavily in this process.
The present road death toll stands at 32 compared with 31 for the same period last year.
We must work with the police and Land Transport Authority to stop the carnage on our roads.
