Public safety commission

This refers to the column, “It is time for a public safety commission” by Salman Al-Jishi. Al-Jishi has raised very valid points about the blame game among the authorities over the two recent tragic incidents, namely, the Riyadh gas tanker accident and the Ain Al Dar calamity. Accidents and incidents do occur, but the wisdom lies in learning from those accidents and giving a very deep insight into the causes and take immediate and effective steps to rectify those lapses and shortcomings.
Indeed, the suggestion of Al-Jishi to place all of the departments concerned with the safety and disaster management under one commission is worth consideration. However, I believe that the only way we could ensure effective functioning of all of the public departments is by making them fully liable and responsible for any accident or incident that could be attributed to their inefficiency, negligence, unprofessional approach or lack of skills of the concerned persons.
Besides the penalties and disciplinary action by the administration, which is always there, the citizens and the residents be given full right to sue any public department or official for any wrongdoing or inefficiency and claim damages.
Many of the road accidents are also caused due to improper designing of the roads, bridges and the flyovers. The designing of road, bridges and flyovers requires special expertise and only the engineering firms that have very rich experience in this field be engaged and the work should not be entrusted to an engineering firm that does not have sufficient expertise and experience. Besides, non-provision of signboards to alert drivers about the curves, dead ends, diverts, speed breakers also cause accidents day in and day out.
As we all witnessed, the preparedness and very good disaster management planning did not cause very huge loss of life when a very powerful Hurricane Sandy hit the Eastern Coast of the United States two weeks ago. — Safi H. Jannaty, Dammam