Bangalore: 12 Sept.

Speaking to reporters, Minister of Public Works, G. Karjol said, “Every year, around 10,000 accidents are reported in the state. The media blames it on bad roads. But, I believe it is due to good roads.”



Yep, 'life is by accident'

Well sure, makes sense, people are more attentive and careful on bad roads than they are on good ones. I see people on our hyways every day, reading, chatting on their phones, eating their lunch, fussing with something in the back seat, while driving 80mph.
On really bad narrow bumpy curvy roads, everyone has both hands on the wheel, are staring straight ahead and going well below the speed limit.

In all fairness, although it sounds absurd the man may have a good point. On the few straight and level roads through the Rossendale Valley, people speed and generally don't pay attention. On the twisty, drystone wall lined rural road between here and Burnley, that will kill you if you come off the road at more than 40 mph, people pay attention and the ones who don't get scraped off the walls.

That reasoning is understandable, but here in Bangalore (where this guy is minister) there have been enough cases of two-wheeler riders losing balance and falling under buses and trucks, because they couldn't negotiate potholes - sometimes because the road was under water. Again, in many of the cases the rider was going at an unsafe speed as well. Also these are mostly inside the city, not on highways.

I guess the ideal situation that some of us would like is for the roads to be great and the users to follow rules, not speed etc. Not gonna happen, huh?

I know I used to feel sleepy on my motorcycle on a short "good" stretch of city road on the way home at 11pm ...

(edit)
Also here we have a conveniently lax attitude towards following traffic rules, there is always a good chance you're following all the rules and get hit by a vehicle coming the wrong way. So recently the central ("federal"?) minister for roads introduced steep hikes in fines for traffic violations, but the states are cutting down the fines to placate the masses.

I have driven on the roads in the East, and I've got to say, "you folks are crazy", when it comes to driving. But over here in the U.S. it is getting worse every day. I guess we are beginning to catch up with the rest of the world.

no small thanks to some of us infiltrating, i'm sure

while i'm at it, what the heck

So we agree that drivers become accident prone on highways due to boredom or ‘driving fatigue’. In fact a study (in the West) showed most accidents occur when the vehicles are close to their destinations. I believe, for this reason, there are designated spots near towns for 'shut eye'.

Over here, it's an open secret that state level road contractors work as consortium during the bidding process and this is just one layer of ‘corruption’ here. Politics here means big money and the real reason potholes reappear after annual monsoons on our roads. Highways are monitored by central vigilance.

What the minister did as Bir says, was intersect data from highway with city roads.
'What a joke', and in that bitter moment posted it here.

From the responses I can only assume that in the west there are no 'commissions' earned by government officials.

If Bir had not posted the cartoons I would have maintained my silence but Sir Bir this is the saddest truth.

And now Crystal will come by and say ‘Indians live in gutters of corruption’ and
she wouldn't be wrong.

"BLR" is the airport code for bengaLooru.

I happened to read Asterix comics when in school and any sentence that deems a group of people crazy reminds me of that thing Obelix is doing there.

We surely are crazy in the way we use roads.