At least 20 people lost their lives in two separate road accidents in Gulmi and Udayapur districts on Monday alone. The tragic accident has occurred just two days after another tragic accident, where 31 people were killed when an overcrowded passenger bus had plunged into the Trishuli River at Gajuri of Dhading district. It is likely that the death toll would increase as dozens passengers of these three accidents are reported to have critical and some are still missing in the river. Nepal witnessed dozens accidents during the recent festival season where more than 70 people have killed and dozens injured even though some minor accidents still left unaccounted for. Though the exact causes of the accidents happened within three days are yet to be come officially, the common causes of the accidents in Nepal including the recent three one were either overloaded vehicles or reckless driving. The number of death due to road accidents in Nepal seems terrifying. If we examine the government’s statistic regarding the accidents in the fiscal year 2016/017, at least 2,384 people had died, which means at least 6 people die every day in road accidents on average.
 
The government can do nothing to improve the geographical condition of the country but can advance the poor conditions of highways, crush the outdated vehicles, punish the negligent driver to control the untimely death of the people. The fatal accidents that are happening on the daily basis have raised not only serious questions about the road safety in the country but also the moral question over the concerned authorities that are responsible to mention the road safety in the country. The officials of the Department of Transport Management (DTM) and the Traffic police should have responsible to mention the safety of the roads but they have failed to do so. It is shameful that the DTM is defamed for selling the fake driving license and the office is famed as corrupt office. How can we imagine about the road safety even if the responsible government authorities like DTM involve in the activities like selling fake driving license? The situation of traffic police is also similar to the officials at the DTM. traffic police have not reached on the stage of controlling the over speed even though the studies conducted in the involvement of traffic police show that number one reason for the worst road accidents in Nepal was speeding vehicles. Not only in Nepal overall studies conducted in Nepal and other countries used to show that over 90 percent accidents are attributable to some kind of driving error.
 
The safety of the roads is highly challenged by the syndicates system imposed by the transport entrepreneurs. We have repeatedly been raising the issues about the impediments emerged with the rooted syndicate system in Nepal. The government and its authorities have remained helpless before the syndicate imposers. As the reasons behind the accident occurred on last Sunday at Gajuri of Dhading district relates to the faults of the driver, it has automatically associated with the syndicate system imposed by the transport operators. It is reported from the survivors of the ill-fated vehicles that the passengers had repeatedly asked the driver to slow down the speed, but the driver had each time brushed their concerns aside. There were neither the government authorities to control the overload of the passengers and to control the speed of the vehicle. There is a clear rule that all long-distance buses must have at least two drivers to take turns at the wheel, but it was not there. Since the transport entrepreneurs are privileged to earn the money on their own way from the syndicates system, the bus owners should not show their ravenous to manage two drivers in the long distance route and to carry passengers beyond  the capacity of the bus.