“Monthly data released by the Directorate of Transport has repeatedly flagged high accident and fatality rates. Blackspots are known. Dangerous curves, poorly designed junctions, missing medians and fading lane markings are visible to anyone who drives regularly. Yet corrective action remains slow, fragmented or cosmetic, often triggered only after a fatal crash draws public attention.
Goa’s road infrastructure reflects a troubling lack of coherence. Newly resurfaced stretches abruptly give way to broken roads. Signage is missing, hidden behind trees or placed so late that it offers no real warning.”
Goa does not lack road safety advisories, committees or statistics. What it lacks is the will to act. Union Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari’s recent letter to Chief Minister Pramod Sawant, urging direct intervention to tackle road fatalities, reads less like guidance and more like a reprimand. When a Union Minister has to spell out basics such as signage, lane markings and crash barriers, the problem is no longer technical. It is an administrative failure.
The timing of the letter, just ahead of National Road Safety Month, adds urgency. Gadkari’s emphasis on zero-fatality strategies, scientific crash analysis and immediate engineering corrections is not revolutionary. These principles have been discussed for years. What is disturbing is that Goa, a small and wealthy state by national standards, still struggles to implement them consistently.
The numbers are unforgiving. In October 2025 alone, Goa recorded close to 200 road accidents, resulting in 18 deaths and more than 100 injuries. North Goa accounted for 96 accidents, including eight fatal incidents that claimed nine lives. South Goa reported 104 accidents and nine deaths in the same month. Earlier, in April, the State had seen 198 accidents and 26 fatalities. This is not a spike. It is a pattern.
Monthly data released by the Directorate of Transport has repeatedly flagged high accident and fatality rates. Blackspots are known. Dangerous curves, poorly designed junctions, missing medians and fading lane markings are visible to anyone who drives regularly. Yet corrective action remains slow, fragmented or cosmetic, often triggered only after a fatal crash draws public attention.
Goa’s road infrastructure reflects a troubling lack of coherence. Newly resurfaced stretches abruptly give way to broken roads. Signage is missing, hidden behind trees or placed so late that it offers no real warning. Lane discipline is virtually absent, while enforcement swings between sporadic crackdowns and long periods of indifference. In such conditions, accidents are not exceptions. They are inevitable.
More alarming is the State’s casual approach to court-mandated safety mechanisms. The Supreme Court’s Committee on Road Safety, constituted in 2014, directed all states to establish District Road Safety Committees chaired by District Collectors and involving Members of Parliament. These committees were meant to meet regularly, analyse accident data and ensure time-bound corrective measures.
A decade later, Goa’s compliance appears uneven. While South Goa has reportedly held a few meetings, the North Goa committee has allegedly not met at all. This is not a clerical oversight. It is a failure to respect Supreme Court directives. When institutions designed to save lives are ignored, accountability becomes optional.
The human cost of this neglect is severe. Every fatal accident leaves behind grieving families, financial hardship and psychological trauma. Many victims are young riders, daily commuters or workers travelling at odd hours. For them, a missing signboard or a poorly lit junction can be the difference between life and death.
Tourism complicates the picture but does not excuse inaction. Goa’s roads are shared by locals and visitors, many of whom are unfamiliar with local driving conditions and rely heavily on signage and road markings. If anything, a tourism-driven economy should demand higher safety standards. Instead, visitors and residents alike are exposed to the same risks.
Gadkari’s call for data-driven interventions and engineering solutions highlights what has been missing. Road safety cannot be reduced to helmet drives, fines or occasional awareness campaigns. It requires coordination across departments, clear timelines, and political ownership at the highest level. Zero fatalities is not a slogan for January banners. It is a policy goal that must shape every decision on road design and enforcement.
Goa now faces a stark choice. It can treat this letter as yet another advisory to be acknowledged and forgotten, or as a warning that patience is wearing thin. The deaths on its roads are not accidents in the truest sense. They are the foreseeable consequences of delay, denial and disregard.
