Kumkum Sharma<\/p>\n
Intern at Branding and Communications at SGT University, Gurugram.<\/p>\n
Motor vehicle accidents in India are no longer matters of traffic discipline. They are a reaching public-safety problem. About road design, traffic enforcement.. Most critically about cultivating a fundamentally new attitude towards safety.<\/p>\n
With 1% of vehicles globally the country bears 11% of road-accident deaths.. A big part of the explanation lies in the laxity around seat belts and helmets. Post-accident forensic studies in India have repeatedly shown how people are thrown out of vehicles in collisions or suffer impact from inside. Children are especially vulnerable to impact since the use of rear-seat belts and child-friendly restraints is not yet universal.<\/p>\n
The Supreme Court has recently taken up the issue. A Bench seeking inputs from the Road Transport Ministry on steps to reduce road deaths after a petition sought enhanced measures to enforce existing protocols.. Even as the judiciary wades into this sensitive domain its interventions will not by themselves make India\u2019s roads safe.<\/p>\n
Seat belts and helmets are necessary but not sufficient<\/p>\n
as enforcement mechanisms for safety regulation, such as the use of seat belts and helmets face challenges. Including manpower shortages. There is also a need to make manufacturers accountable. Seat-belt reminder systems, whose sensors cannot be manually overridden should perhaps be mandated. Similarly modifications to vehicles post-sale should not defeat the safety features built into them at the factory.<\/p>\n
The Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Act 2019 which introduced a set of road-safety measures has not yielded the hoped-for results. National statistics for 2024 show that two-wheeler riders contribute to 46.2% of road deaths with pedestrians accounting for another 20.6% suggesting that measures targeting seat belts and child restraints have limited applicability. As many as 9 out of every 10 road deaths in India occur among people in vehicles or on foot.. The enhancement of their safety though vital is not sufficient to stem the tide of deaths.<\/p>\n
Speed is the issue<\/p>\n
While the problem of speed has always been a concern in India there is growing recognition of the need for a comprehensive strategy to deal with it. This goes beyond enforcement and penalties. It requires a rethink on building roads and transport systems that’re inherently “safer\u201d.<\/p>\n
India needs to develop a “Safe System” approach to road-safety. This approach is based on the following principles:<\/p>\n
\u2022 The road system must incorporate measures to prevent death and serious injury due to crashes. Because human error is inevitable.<\/p>\n
\u2022 The responsibility for road-safety extends beyond road-users to transportation authorities and governments.<\/p>\n
The objective must be to create road systems, vehicles and road-user behaviours that make crashes less likely and less severe when they do happen. Speed reduction is an element. Since speed is the contributing factor to crashes and their severity.<\/p>\n
A Safe System approach will also seek to identify high-risk road stretches and take measures to reduce the likelihood and impact of crashes there. It will involve building infrastructure that minimises exposure of children to two-wheelers and other sources of danger and creating emergency medical-care systems that can provide crash victims with the care they need in time. At present neither the Union government nor the States have adopted a Safe System approach.<\/p>\n
Schools can play their part<\/p>\n
Teaching road-safety awareness to children. Emphasising responsibility will unquestionably help in the long term.. It cannot be the main lever. India\u2019s current road-safety strategy is not working, as the numbers testify.<\/p>\n
India needs to build a “culture of safety” in which every citizen actively promotes a road environment and where unsafe behaviour’s unacceptable. Wearing helmets or seat belts and following speed limits or giving way to pedestrians, for instance must become norms.<\/p>\n
Without an ecosystem that promotes and incentivises such a culture road-safety will remain a goal. India will need to evolve a -pronged strategy if it hopes to reduce the number of road deaths and injuries to any degree. Enhancing enforcement and penalising violations of road-safety laws are important. They are not sufficient.<\/p>\n
The Supreme Court\u2019s decision to return the petition to the Centre to consider wider road-safety strategies is significant. Of adopting an interventionist approach as it did in 2019 the Court has recognised the centrality of a “joined-up” approach. One that goes beyond responsibility and focuses on building a road-safety ecosystem. India\u2019s road-safety crisis cannot be solved by diktats; what the country needs is a reaching overhaul of its entire road-safety regime.<\/p>\n
Because safer roads are not engineered by telling people to behave roads are created by building systems that keep people alive even when they do not.<\/p>\n
Kumkum Sharma Intern at Branding and Communications at SGT University, Gurugram. Motor vehicle accidents in India are no longer matters of traffic discipline. They are a reaching public-safety problem. About road design, traffic enforcement.. Most critically about cultivating a fundamentally new attitude towards safety. With 1% of vehicles globally the country bears 11% of road-accident …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":29264,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3550,41,3613],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29258","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-3550","category-41","category-3613"],"yoast_head":"\n