Economic growth has set off a wave of motorisation in India, but in the absence of a comprehensive approach to road safety, accidents are killing or maiming a large number of people every year. Data for 2010 presented to Parliament in the last session show that 134,513 people died in road accidents, an increase from 119,860 just two years earlier. The available statistics for accident-related injuries are grossly low and far from complete, due to underreporting. Quite simply, India’s love of vehicles over the past quarter century has been so intense that it has strained the capacity of States and Union Territories to intervene. Governments, on their part, are approaching this serious issue with token gestures, rather than launching systemic reform. It is wholly appropriate, therefore, that the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Transport, Tourism and Culture in the Rajya Sabha has taken up detailed examination of all aspects of road safety. This exercise, following the panel’s 2008 report on the Motor Vehicles Act, must lead to far-going change. It is vital, because it encompasses legal and institutional frameworks, programmes, public health interventions, compensation and human resource development for road safety.
The task before the Standing Committee is to review the expert recommendations and international best practices that have so far been ignored by governments, and produce a fresh blueprint for change. Five years have passed since the Sundar Committee on road safety and traffic management called for a scientific accident investigation system, and formation of a single empowered board for safety. Sadly, that has remained an elusive goal. Such an agency should ideally be responsible for targets — starting with a reduction in the annual death toll. Policymakers should also look at pointers on safety available from transport research. A study conducted by IIT-Delhi in Bangalore showed that low-floor bus design and automatic doors reduced the risk of death and injury to passengers, since 92 per cent of people who had a fatal fall from a bus were entering or exiting. Such designs must therefore be made mandatory for buses across the country. To aid pedestrians, civic agencies should be compelled to provide usable footpaths of sound technical standards, and regulated crossings, in all cities and towns. Failure to do so should attract stiff penalties. Segregated pathways for cyclists are now internationally acknowledged for their role in safety, and need to be introduced through re-engineering of urban spaces. Overall, road safety has to become a key national mission that invites active stakeholder participation.
Keywords: India motorisation, road safety, Motor Vehicles Act, Sundar Committee on road safety, traffic management, India accidents
We always curse the Government for any mishap took place. But this is only the one side of the coin. In our country people never abide with the rules, though our traffic policies/rules are also not strong enough to ensure safety. So it should be like two side initiative where Government and people should co-operate to avoid such severe accidents. And definitely bring downfall in accidents number.
The statistics, as this article contains, reveals the urgency to address the growing fatalities on the roads. A nation can not afford lacs of people dieing annually in road accidents. It will be shame on both moral as well as administrative grounds. So, the nation need to come up with comprehensive framework with cutting edge technology and provide required support to municipal authorities to tackle this severe problem. Example of Delhi Metro, which not only have reduced road accidents but also provides faster, safer, cheaper and user friendly transportation in a well networked manner, should guide the efforts for road solutions. Not to say, the political will is at the bottom for such a revolutionary change. If delayed, the burgeoning population and growing economy will only rise the road accidents and so the road fatalities.
public transport will not improve... forget it. because the government wants all of us to buy cars.. car loans etc. That is all to feed the MNCs selling cars with money. If Indians had good public transport, they wouldn't buy personal vehicle for sure.
Improvement in road conditions and increase in number of cars as part of economic growth and development ironically has resulted in increase in the number of fatal road accidents in the country. The country has yet to gear itself up to establishing norms of road safety and more importantly enforcing adherance to road safety laws. There is need to urgently upgrade the technology of catching errant drivers which would act as a deterrent to road users contemptuously ignoring road safety norms going scot free on most occasions. The traffic authorities seem more keen to catch celebrity violations and get media attention. Innocent lives of human beings and even pets are lost in the madness which could well be avoided with better administration of road safety norms. Hopefully in the near future we as a nation would be able to rise to the occasion and behave in an exemplary fasion in scrupulously following road safety norms and take care of ourselves as well as fellow citizens.
Pedestrian safety is ridiculous in India especially in Mumbai where whatever footpaths that do exist are either broken or occupied by hawkers.
This is for very simple reason, we have no understanding and basic knowledge about basic things in life. Every thing is take for granted. This applies at all levels like health, industries, road etc. Life is the only thing which has no value. Thinking applies to every body including higly educated and highest post holders.
Some days back The Hindu carried a news with photo showing a volvo bus with 30 passengers having met with accident near Hyderabad resulting in heavy fatalities.Blinded by the powerful bright lights from the oncoming vehicle the Driver of the ill fated volvo swerved too much to the left and in the act plunged to a depth.In the olden days though there were few vehicles plying on the roads the Drivers were adopting caution by dipping and dimming the lights to enable the other to clearly see the road contours and drive.This sound practice is no longer there and as a result too much swerving to the sides and head on collisions occur.In this electronic age the dip/dim discipline can be enforced with penalties to the erring drivers.The physical fitness of the drivers and alcoholism should also be monitored.
Some days back The Hindu carried a news with photo showing a volvo bus with 30 passengers having met with accident resulting in heavy fatalities near Hyderabad. Blinded by the powerful bright lights from the oncoming vehicle the Driver of the ill fated volvo swerved too much to the left and plunged to a depth.In the olden days there were not many vehicles plying on the roads and yet the Drivers adopted caution by dipping and dimming the lights to enable the other to clearly see the road contours and drive.This sound practice is no longer there nowadays and vehicles speed flouting all road rules. Too much swerving to the sides and head on collisions occur because of non-dipping and dimming of lights.In this electronic age it will not be difficult to enforce dim/dip discipline strictly by hefty penalties.Besides physical fitness of Drivers should be monitored periodically.
Back in 2000, I remember saying to a friend that the number of people killed on Indian roads every year is the same as all the people killed in the Kashmir dispute in the last 15 years. Yet, the government paid more attention to Kashmir than road safety. In 2000, the number was 40,000 people killed every year, roughly the same as in the USA which had about 20 times more vehicles than India.
I am saddened to see the fatalities more than quadruple to 135,000 in the last 10 years.
India is number one(world) in road accidents. The steps taken to reduce this zooms to level 0. It will be more useful, if the article had shed more light on graphical representation of this serious issue. Many times I have felt that it is safer to be in military--probability of you surviving in a war is better than using roads in India!!
Recently The Hindu had an article on the heavy fuel wastage due to poor Indian roads of Rs. 81,192 crore in 2011-12, estimated to rise to Rs. 1.07 lakh crore in 2012-13. Today’s article indicates the huge volume of human resources, medical resources etc wasted due to poor roads. Since independence India has routinely engaged commissions, experts etc by central and state governments to study matters of grave importance. By the time the reports or schemes are made, the matter is ignored by the government or new gov't in the centre/state. Today’s editorial ‘Disaster Ahoy’ on the huge losses by fire in Mumbai and mentions a shelved scheme for the building’s safety. It is high time the intelligentsia devise solutions for this severely chronic Indian problem of ignoring painstakingly made reports/schemes on decisive matters. This makes its democracy very ineffective, a mockery or a ‘functioning anarchy’! This is the reason for the poor infrastructure, slow & poor socio-economic development.
Frequency of public transport is another area have significant scope of
improvement. This is one of the reason compels people to use private
transport.
India as a growing country as far as population is concerned faces a critical situation to minimize ROAD ACCIDENTS.
The eagerness in automobiles is growing at a rapid speed which invites a lot of difficulties related to it .On the other hand carelessness driving creates more difficulties for the Government officials to look deep into road safety.
Combined step taken by people and government can significantly decrease road accidents cases in the country.
Along with the above renovations, we should place concave mirror on the turning tracks where people going from one side are not able to see those comming from the other.
Your observation that road safety has to become a key national mission with active involvement of all stakeholders is very appropriate. Road safety training has not received necessary attention. I was working in a safety organization and we had conducted eyesight tests of many truck drivers as a part of one road safety training programme for truck drivers. We found that good many drivers were driving vehicles with poor eyesight and without wearing required spectacles. Another finding was their employers paid little attention to the road safety aspects. Further, road accident victims are often the target of insurance companies' anti-victim attitude and lose a part of insurance claim compensation because of corruption.
Lack of road discipline / enforcement and inadequecy of driver training and licensing are root
causes. Poor road signs and parking chaos worsen the situation.Another key aspect is
utterly poor lane discipline of two wheeler drivers ; surprisingly the bus drivers are always
blamed for ' hitting motor cyclist from behind '.
Low floor buses are very expensive and meant only for urban use.They add to comfort level
and have no major role in safety enhancement.Incidentally the contemporary and modern
cars in our country's roads have certainly not reduced accidents.Accident research should
identify key result areas and the system shoul focus on those.
The recommandations mentioned above are prospective and visionary but prior to that there is a need to have comprehensive road usage guidelines, rigid norms for driving licences, campaign for road safety, stringent laws and their enforcement to make people comply to traffic norms.
Although all these seems to have been omnipresent but systemic errors compel us to relook them and design more innovative ones to meet future aspiration.
Good editorial on road safety. It is high time governments take serious note of this very high death rate/hour on roads in India.
Many accidents happen while crossing the road, this can be minimized if there is a subway for the pedestrians in every city. And one good point is mentioned that the automatic doors in buses etc will reduce the risk of death and injury to passengers by a great extent.
Road safety is applicable to traveling public and pedestrians too.Drunken driving,sleep and
rest starved drivers,poor roads with out median,old and to be condemned vehicles without
breaks,cycles,autorikshas,carts and processions in the already chocked roads all lead to
accidents.We follow right hand drive while it is left hand in North America where road
accidents are a few.Carrying capacity of majority of our roads has surpassed the
threshold.Mass transportation is encouraged in principle but single occupant cars are in
practice.Government has double standards in this matter.All banks provide loans on liberal
terms to purchase cars and possession becomes a social prestige.Road safety should start
at primary school itself.Traffic guards from senior students can guide the entry and exit from
public transport system in the vicinity.Pedestrians may choose the assigned walkways on
right side.Defensive driving is desirable for such congested situation where turns are taken
without signals.
Thank you for a timely editorial. You are absolutely right in pointing out the problems. However, what is really required is discipling the people who use the roads, especially the motorized vehicle drivers. Unfortunately, in India, the moment strict rules are enforced everyone from the public to 'human rights activists' to the press start crying foul and accuse the police. Perhaps the best way will be to install cameras in at least 1000 important junctions and impose fines automatically. The cost of the cameras and running these can be recovered in a short while. Also enforce that the number plates are in accord with the regulations, make helmets compulsory for even the pillion riders and seat belts for the rear seat passengers also. Surely, the safety in roads will increase dramatically. I also agree totally with the other suggestions given by Mr Periasamy.
Can the Hindu please take the lead? We, its ardent readers can be requested to help in this endeavour also.
Cities and mega cities should adopt innovative policy measures. For example, road space should be divided among pedestrians, public and private transport based on scientific and democratic principles. Public transport (bus, auto and taxi) network should be expanded and inter-linked. Travel by these modes should be heavily subsidized during ‘busy’ morning and evening hours. Acceptance of fares by electronic smart cards and electronic surveillance of registered public transport vehicles facilitates transferring subsidies to the operator.
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