Garowe, April 26, 2019 – Puntland State of Somalia is not concerned about or doing anything state-like towards the regulation of transport and passenger industry. As a result, heavily populated urban cities of Puntland like Galkayo, Garowe and Bosaso are becoming dangerous and threat to life in driving a car along their poorly maintained city roads.
First of all, hundreds of stray goats, whose owners intentionally and carelessly release to the streets of the cities rampage along the roads, creating long daily traffic jams. Since Traffic Police is almost non-existent, no traffic regulations or enforcement is talked about here. Every driver is on his/her own to drive every way or direction they wish. Drivers turn and twist their cars dangerously in the middle of the narrow roads, some driving head-on on the wrong driving lanes. One often sees a long line of cars caught in heavy traffic jam because of one driver ahead stopping right in the middle of the road to answer a call on mobile phone, not even appreciating that there are hundreds of cars being held up behind him or her. It is also a common occurance to see two drivers going to different directions stopping in the middle of the narrow road engaged in animated conversation side by side, holding up all auto-traffic movement to all directions. This is nuts. Nobody is doing anything about it.
Nobody is advising city taxi drivers to stop aside or give room for cars behind to pass over when they are dropping off or picking up a passengers along the road. Because a taxi is blocking the road with passengers getting in or off, drivers behind it are forced to stop and wait for the taxi to move, thus creating preventable auto-traffic jam in this driving violation.This is another nuisance for drivers. Auto-insurance is unheard of here. A driver is on his/her own with regards to accident liabilities.
Public safety is among the core responsibilities of a government at all levels and all branches of a government, including the House of Representatives and Judiciary. It is about time, in fact, long overdue, I would say, for Puntland State to act like a government, and start handling this public safety priority to save lives.
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