Tula Ram Sharma, engineer at the Division Road Office (DRO), Jumla, said poor condition of the road cannot alone be blamed for the incident. "Though the road has only been graveled, it is in good shape. One would not anticipate such a fatal accident along the road," he said.
The survivors of the Monday's bus accident put the blame squarely on the driver. They said the driver seemed to be in a hurry to reach his destination and was over-speeding. "The ideal speed for vehicles plying the highway is 25 to 30 km/hour. However, vehicles seem to be running at double that speed," said engineer Sharma. "Accidents would not have occurred had the drivers driven their vehicles responsibly."
Sharma, however, said that the government too cannot shirk its responsibility. Around a 100km section of the 232km-long Karnali Highway has yet to be blacktopped. Even the blacktopped section of the highway is not completely risk free. The condition of the road is deteriorating but the government has taken no initiatives to improve the road condition.
To make matters worse, the highway is full of twist and turns. DIG Keshav Adhikari of Nepal Police Traffic Division said, "As the road is full of twist and turns, vehicles coming from the opposite direction are visible only at a distance of 3-4m. This does give enough time for speeding vehicles to slow down," said Adhikari. He said lack of traffic signals along the road has also increased the risk of accidents.
According to DIG Adhikari, another main reason for increasing road accidents is increasing vehicular traffic. According to the government, vehicular traffic has gone up by 464 percent over the last decade. "However, the government has not recruited traffic police personnel in that ratio," said Adhikari. He said there are only 192 traffic police personnel in the mid-western region. "This means one traffic police cop needs to monitor 376 vehicles," said Adhikari.
Transport entrepreneurs are also being blamed for increasing number of road accidents as they have been running old vehicles. The mid-western region does not have vehicle fitness centers to test the condition of vehicles. As a result the traffic police deployed along the highway cannot take action against such vehicles.
"However, drivers are to blame in most of the road accidents," said DIG Adhikari. "We are planning to launch awareness campaigns so that drivers do not drive negligently."
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