What is Road Rage? Road rage is aggressive or angry behaviour by a driver of an automobile or another road vehicle which includes rude gestures, verbal insults, physical threats or dangerous driving methods targeted toward another driver in an effort to intimidate or release frustration.(Wikipedia)
Overtaking and racing on the smooth highways and byways of this beautiful palm fringed coastal state has assumed deathly proportions. Especially by the drivers of trucks. They always seem to be impatient and in a hurry. Besides, their frustration when encountered with a female motorist (two or four-wheeler) riding or driving ahead of them, knows no bounds.
In the past Goa has witnessed many female two-wheeler rider accidents, were they results of road rage?
Now another accident!
On 29th May 2017 at 1.00 pm a School Headmistress was riding her two-wheeler on the busy Miramar-Campal Road in North Goa. Pradnya Narayan Prabhu (55) was hit by an overtaking sewerage tanker. Unfortunately, she didn’t live to tell her tale and breathed her last en route to Goa Medical College Hospital, Bambolim.
According to a Panjim Police official, “The driver attempted to overtake the woman rider when the bike came under the wheels of the tanker. Being at full speed, the tanker ran over the biker causing her death.” The driver has been arrested under sections 304-A for causing death by negligence and 279 for rash driving of the Indian Penal Code.
Women riders are treated with slight on Goan roads. Every time one encounters a female rider or driver, there is a 99% tendency to overtake her. Mostly by men and unfortunately, sometimes even by their own compatriots. Women riders/drivers only garner the ire of other drivers and riders. Sad but true.
Hazards of overtaking
Overtaking another vehicle on the narrow Goan roads puts the rider in question in a precarious position. Besides, a miscalculation on the part of the overtaking vehicle can be grievous and fatal. Most of the fatal accidents in Goa have been reportedly caused by overtaking or overspeeding.
Did the unsuspecting school headmistress make a wrong move out of fear? Or was it a miscalculation on the part of the sewerage truck driver? Was he too eager to overtake the female rider in front of him?
We will never know!
