An incident related to the death of a motorist and a development regarding traffic rule violation have turned the focus towards road safety.
The death of Chennai girl Subasri, who died when a water tanker ran over her after she lost balance when a banner fell on her in Chennai on September 12 drew the public attention towards road safety.
The Central Government recently increasing the penalty for various traffic violations has forced the public to pose question on other issues connected to road safety such as condition of roads, presence of road safety signs and compliance with road safety norms.
The questions raised are very important and assume significance because just as rash driving and drunken driving may cause accidents, bad roads too cause accidents. But, does not get the attention it deserves, says District Road Safety Committee member K. Kathirmathiyon.
Road condition, road safety sign and a few others come under the engineering aspect of road safety and is one of the three ‘Es’, the other two being education and enforcement.
The governments asking two-wheeler riders to wear helmet or four-wheeler drivers to fasten seat belts, abide by rules or slapping fine cover only two of the three ‘Es’ and by keeping the focus on the two, is somehow abdicating its responsibility towards the third ‘E’ - engineering, he says.
Speed breakers without caution board or chequered marks, poorly designed and placed speed breakers, manhole lids that are either above or below the road surface, medians placed without a warning for road users, barricades without reflectors, potholes among others are all known to cause accidents, fatal or otherwise.
These issues are hardly investigated, studied or highlighted by police and not at all corrected by either the Coimbatore Corporation or State Highways, he alleges.
There are only a handful of manhole lids in the city that are at road surface level. The others are either well above or below and cause accidents. Though the District Road Safety Committee has taken this issue to the notice of the Corporation, the latter has done very little to correct this in all these years, rues D. Nandakumar, another Committee member.
“It appears that the Corporation engineers either do not know how or are incompetent to construct manholes with surface at road level,” Mr. Kathirmathiyon quips and asks, “is the civic body waiting for an accident to happen to correct manholes, just as it removed hoardings after Subasri's death.”
Next on the list is speed breakers. Though the Indian Road Congress norms clearly state that at junctions speed breakers are to be placed only on minor roads, this again seems to have missed the Corporation's eyes as at three-road and four-road junctions, it has constructed speed breakers on all the roads.
The road connecting Krishnasamy Road (Brooke Bond Road) to Mettupalayam Road through Kamarajapuram is an example where the speed breaker is on the main road and not minor roads, Mr. Kathirmathiyon points out.
The absence of chequered markings on speed breakers is another issue that the Coimbatore City Traffic Police personnel point out to violation of road safety norms by the Corporation.
The issue of speed breakers assumes significance because the Supreme Court has commented that there are more accidents due to the presence of speed breakers than their absence.
Likewise, the absence of caution boards for speed breakers and dividers also contribute to accidents as road users are caught unawares.
For these issues to be talking points and Corporation or State Highways Department to comply with those, the City Traffic Police should also book officers concerned if poor road design or pothole or manhole or absence of caution boards have caused accidents, he demands.
In fact, the City Traffic Police have provision under existing laws to file FIR against the officers under Sections 308, 336, 337, 338 and 304(a) of the Indian Penal Code.
Section 308 deals with attempt to commit culpable homicide, 336 act endangering life or personal safety of others, 337 causing hurt by act endangering life or personal safety of others, 338 causing grievous hurt by act endangering life or personal safety of others and 304(a) causing death by negligence.
But this is hardly done, admits a senior City Traffic Police officer. The first is that the police officers investigating accidents are not trained to look at road safety angle as a possible cause of death.
Even if it comes to light during investigation that pothole or speed breaker or manhole lid or protruding iron casing covering water supply valves or medians are reasons for accidents, the investigation officers do not charge the engineers responsible for road maintenance.
The officer also says that the City Traffic Police are also not in the habit of scientifically studying the cause of accidents for documentation purposes.
Therefore, it does not have the number of accidents caused due to poor road condition.
And, the absence of documentation is an impediment to correcting mistakes.
Unless this is done, the city roads will not see any improvement, Mr. Nandakumar says. Mr. Kathirmathiyon adds that there should be road safety audits and preferably by an independent agency, as it is done in a few foreign countries.
In India, the National Highways Authority of India has taken a lead by launching the Sukhad Yatra app for road users to report road quality-related information or pothole or accidents. But such a facility is not available for road users to report issues on roads maintained by the State Highways Department or local bodies like the Coimbatore Corporation.
To improve road safety, the National Highways is not just identifying accident-prone spots, but assigning numbers to each of those spots for rectification.
Coimbatore Corporation officials say the civic body is aware of the issue of manhole lids that are either above or below road surface and is taking steps to provide gradients on all sides for smooth ride over.
As for speed breakers, the Corporation will act as per the District Road Safety Committee recommendation to remove those that are not necessary and redesign others as per norms.
