A Friday night accident involving an Audi car at Jaipur's Kharbas Circle has ripped open the festering wound of road safety in the area, with locals describing the stretch as a lawless racing track after sunset. The incident has triggered widespread anger among residents and shopkeepers, who have long endured dangerous driving and official apathy.
A Daily Dose of Danger: Screeching Tyres and High-Speed Thrills
Vijay Kumar, who works at a shop near the notorious circle, paints a grim picture of daily life. He states that long, straight approaches to the roundabout invite drivers to speed, with vehicles often failing to slow down in time. "You can hear tyres skidding and screeching almost every day," Kumar reveals, emphasizing that this is far from an isolated event. "The entire stretch has become a speeding track."
Echoing this sentiment, Santosh Jhajharia, a resident of Patrakar Colony who frequents the area near a well-known hotel, pinpoints excessive entry speed as the core problem. He explains that vehicles entering the circle at high velocity simply cannot navigate the curve safely. Jhajharia also highlights other critical issues: "Dumper trucks travel on the wrong side through the night. There is barely any police checking." For two-wheeler riders like him, the situation is dire, as they are forced to use service lanes in terrible condition.
Broken Roads and Blinding Darkness: A Recipe for Disaster
The peril is compounded by the abysmal state of the infrastructure. Locals complain about perpetual construction work on roads like Vande Mataram Road, where one department lays pipes only for another to dig them up for cables. This has left the road surface patchy and hazardous. Adding to the risk is inadequate lighting. Jora Ram, a street vendor selling coffee and tea, points out that while student movement is constant day and night, safety measures are negligible. "The street lights are not adequate to cover the entire stretch of the road," he laments, leaving pedestrians and riders in the dark.
Official Admissions and Public Frustration
Following the accident, officials who visited the spot acknowledged the multiple systemic failures. They admitted the urgent need for reflective lane markings and physical separators to properly guide traffic into the roundabout. However, for residents, these admissions ring hollow. They claim that repeated complaints to the authorities have yielded no relief, with problems like illegal encroachments persisting unchecked.
The collective testimony from Jaipur's Kharbas Circle area reveals a public space surrendered to chaos and speed. The recent Audi crash is a tragic symptom of a chronic disease—a combination of reckless driving, non-existent enforcement, and crumbling infrastructure that has turned a vital city circle into a community's nightmare.
