So how many times have you seen a road accident and driven off? What held you from helping the victim?
Depending on your response, you can fit into any of the three categories that Delhiite Piyush Tewari has put together by drawing from his understanding of running an NGO — perhaps the only one in the country — that focuses on a wholesome solution to road accidents.
“The first type of people is apathetic to the victim; they just drive away,” he says. The second type is concerned but do not touch the victim because they don’t want to be entangled with legal hassles. “At the most, this type will make a call to the PCR van.” The third type “is concerned but is afraid of touching the victim because they think they might make it worse for him.”
Tewari should know better, as for the last four years he has been waging a multi-pronged war through his NGO — Safe Life Foundation — against the rising rate of road accidents in our towns and cities which he points out “are completely avoidable.” He quotes international studies like WHO’s Global Status Report, and also police statistics, to hammer on the point that India tops the list of road accident deaths worldwide, and it is high time we think of how to tame it. If manpower loss at approximately six lakh people per annum between the productive age group of 15 and 40 — either by death or disability due to accidents — is not moving enough, Tewari also draws attention to the point that 2.7 per cent of our GDP goes to paying damages to victims’ families. “It is worth thinking, considering only one per cent of our GDP goes to our healthcare,” he underlines.
To shoot down the numbers, one needs to iron out legal creases so that our citizens can become good Samaritans. Plus it needs bringing stringent laws to control speed limits, pronounce severe punishments for causing deaths due to rash driving, etc.
“Often, the tendency of the police is to first suspect the person who has brought the victim to the hospital. It is not the case in mass injury like rail accidents or bomb blasts. But if a person driving down the road notices an accident and helps the victim, he/ she is often harassed,” points out Tewari. And that is why it is more likely that you would fall into the second category of people he has outlined. “This is the majority group, concerned but afraid of helping the victim because they think they will be harassed by police and have to appear in the court umpteen times.”
The loss from this aspect is huge. “My young cousin bled to death after an accident. Nobody came forward. Imagine, so many like him could have been saved if they had got treatment in the first few minutes.” Tewari started his Foundation following his cousin’s death. “The personal loss made me quit my job of a CEO in a private equity firm. But often I come across people who just can’t fathom why I am putting my money and time for others’ safety. Anything good you want to do in this country faces this problem,” he comments.
To smoothen the critical legal hassles and other stumbles, Tewari has stitched together a policy for road safety in India, which has been submitted to MP Sitaram Yechury, the head of the Standing Committee on Transport — under which comes the Motor Vehicles Act — in March this year. He is also rooting for a Good Samaritan Law to egg on people to help the injured. A petition with the Supreme Court requesting single appearance of such a person as per his/ her convenience is pending.
A wholesome solution to the problem also calls for training cops to handle accident victims as they are often the first to reach the spot. So Tewari’s Foundation has trained 3,500 cops across Delhi, Maharashtra and U.P. till now in providing the critical initial care to a victim. “Soon, we will start training cops in Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka,” he fills in. The training module also features how to look at their safety. “Because we have cases in Delhi where cops have died while helping victims at accident sites,” he adds.
Tewari also points out another benefit springing from this training. “Last Diwali in Delhi, cops could save a boy by giving him the same initial care that we teach them to give to road accident victims.”
At present, he is working on a pilot project on Highway No.8 that connects Maharashtra with Gujarat, a stretch notorious for accidents. This project has bagged him the Rolex Award for Enterprise. “This pilot is meant to be a model for rural areas. We have identified 100 community persons on that stretch and trained them to give the critical initial care to the injured.” These volunteers own motorbikes with which they can reach the spot as soon as possible.
“We have set up a 24-hour call centre in Noida, which responds to an SOS call from anyone from that stretch within two minutes. The volunteers have been given mobile phones through which the centre tracks them.” On checking the victim’s injury, the volunteer SMSes back. “If it is a head injury, we alert our nearest partner hospital to keep a neurologist ready to save time.” In case volunteers are not available, “say, late at night”, the centre, on receiving an SOS from anyone, alerts the nearest ambulance service to act immediately.
“On that highway, most accidents are caused by rods protruding from trucks. We have identified gas cutters on that stretch so that they can be called to the spot immediately if a rod enters a victim’s body.”
The project will run for two more months before Tewari starts a pilot on Delhi’s Ring Road, which sees the maximum number of accidents in the city. The Ring Road project, he states, “will be a model for urban areas.”
Since Tewari doesn’t have funds to implement them, he is open to sharing them with “anyone across the country.” But the question here is, will he find takers? And if at all he does, how many more would have bled to death on our roads by then?
POINTS TAKEN
Piyush Tewari points out “that our roads are not equipped to handle the fast cars and motor bikes that are flooding the market.”
Tewari also calls the situation on Delhi roads much better to handle an emergency. “Delhi has a PCR system; there are 630 police cars across the city which can respond to an SOS call.”
Since our cops don’t have emergency equipments like specialised collars available in many countries to protect the neck of an injured person, the Foundation trains them to make collars out of newspapers before shifting them to the hospital.
In 2014, Tewari’s Foundation plans to launch a fellowship to study road safety.
Indians who have been chosen Rolex Awards for Enterprise Laureates in the past:
R. Gopinath (For innovative natural farming practices, in 1996)
Chanda Shroff (For empowering rural women, in 2006)
Shekhar Dattrati (For making movies on vanishing wildlife in India, in 2004)
Piyush Tewari (For fighting road accident death, in 2010)
The ceremony to give away Rolex Awards for Enterprise will be brought to India for the first time this year end. Rebecca Irvin, head of the company’s philanthropy unit, says, “Considering the entrepreneurship spirit showcased by Indians in the social sector and overwhelming entries from India (for RAE), we have decided to hold the awards ceremony in India this year.”
The awards, given every two years, was launched in 1976 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Rolex Oyster – the world’s first waterproof wristwatch. Till now, they have been given to 120 people across 40 countries.
