Death on the Roads of Kathmandu

If you liked to get to your death bed early, then there is no better place than on the roads of Kathmandu. The haphazard nature of people using their vehicles on the roads with much impunity is the prime reason.

The main people behind this is the youths who drive motorcycles indiscriminately at the reckless speeds in tortuous sways through traffic. Then the next to come in line are the public transport like the micro-buses. Not to be less than the others are the private car owners.

Since each one aspires to be the high flyer and get out the range of obscurity, the best way to show it is to own a bike. If you see any youth in town right from a peon to a student attending college, has nothing else on his lips but the talk of a motorcycle. It seems as if it is a grown up toy of a boy who does not want to be left behind in the game of thrill and speed.

The most important of it all, he does not want to be left out from what is happening in town. His level of pride increase, not only among his fellow boys but also among the girls. He does not want to be associated with the mangy bicycle, the foot or public transportation. It would make him diminutive which is natural that no human wants to feel.

But this has a consequence, as he is young and has to show his exploits by not bragging about it but also proving his worth at proving it physically. So he recklessly drives through the streets of Kathmandu, where even a fraction of inch he deviates from the set path leads to catastrophe of not him falling into the lap of death or being maimed but causing other to suffer.

No amount of advice or rationality will deviate a youth from showing his youth intensity of proving himself but the resultant of it is suffering to his loved ones. Many have to bear the blunt of restoring the youth back to his former self both in ways of psychological suffering as well as financially.

Not far behind the youthful motorbike users are the public transportation, especially the ones driving the microbuses. They are held bent at picking up passengers on every metre that their eyes are only on the pavement side of the road. Then they compete with the next buses, so that he gets a passenger instead of him. All this lackadaisical attitude results in a accidents where the innocent has to bear the blunt in either injury or death.

Most of them get away with this attitude as they are more like a mafia who work under a syndicate so with a small payment to whom their kill, they are let off with impunity to continue to their reckless attitude of death on the roads of Kathmandu.

Motorbikes and microbuses are responsible for a the largest amount of accidents in Kathmandu which reach as high as five thousand annually. It would be best if large amounts of compensation is pay to the victims of these accidents. I bet that it would help in curbing accidents to a larger extend when you have to pay out from your pocket for a greater period of your life. Just as the life of those have been taken by this reckless attitude is precious, the person responsible for taking it away should be made to understand so.

Steven William Pitts