Cricketer Rishabh Pant’s accident near Roorkee, resulting in some injuries, has once again drawn attention to the problem of road safety in India. Nitin Gadkari, Minister of Road Transport and Highways, Government of India, recently said that the Indian road accident scenario, with 415 deaths and many injured everyday, is more serious than Covid-19. This is a frank admission that even with comprehensive road safety programmes, India’s record shows little signs of improvement.
Why is this so? Before examining this and looking at some possible solutions, here’s an anecdote. An Indian family travelling in Switzerland asked the driver of their mini bus to stop by the road so that their young daughter could relieve herself. Although they were on a local highway in a suburban area with negligible traffic, the driver refused to stop, saying: “I can’t stop here. A traffic judge would ask, what’s more important, someone wetting the seat or the safety of those on the road! We need to wait till we reach a public convenience.” The family continued pestering him, “It will not take more than a minute…”
In India, we seem to be hundreds of years away from the mindset of that minibus driver, as seen in the rising number of road crashes. Looking at the gross violations of the traffic norms and values in important cities and upcoming towns in the country one can infer that road safety is nobody’s baby: It is an orphan, desperately waiting for adoption. Deadly violations of lane driving, speed limits and traffic signals, instances of at-will parking on the fast-developing modern, smooth highways — all these go mostly unchecked and unquestioned. The causes of road crashes, such as the ones above, are well known. Human error on the roads is admittedly the single-largest factor responsible. How are we so helpless against this man-made menace, while a pandemic caused by a virus is being speedily tamed?
The enforcement of traffic norms is the key to road safety. This is not to simplify the complex nature of the problem at hand. All ongoing programmes towards enhancing safe road conditions and vehicles have to go on. However, the priority goal and the global mandate is to significantly reduce the rising number of road crashes.
The central and state governments run complex road safety programmes with their scarce resources, with little success. The World Bank has chipped in with a $250 million loan to India to tackle the high rate of road crashes through road-safety institutional reforms and the results-based interventions.
A quick look at the road traffic flow in most parts of India is enough to reveal the administrative and political apathy toward road safety. The fact of the matter is that simple but serious issues, like road users’ inept understanding of the basic traffic rules and road signage, easier access to driving licences without a meaningful ground scrutiny of skills and unchecked selfish and aggressive driving behaviour continue to dominate Indian road traffic. Nobody seems to know which lane they’re supposed to be in; not even the traffic police personnel on duty can tell. Further, in case of a serious road crash, charges are framed against the erring drivers, but rarely (or, never) against the road-safety public officials for non-performance, non-enforcement of traffic rules, not taking urgent corrective action on conspicuous road-hazards and the black spots. At the macro level, various institutions of road safety, both at the national level and in the states, are engaged in routine paperwork and bear no accountability for the failure to produce desired results.
Thus, the overall apathy, combined with a serious laxity in working out systemic ways and achieving results-based interventions have marred the country’s road-safety image the most.
Regular, professional enforcement of rules and swift and innovative solutions to traffic indiscipline and bottlenecks by the administration could help evolve a healthy safe-road culture. Of late the Indian government and certain state governments have recorded some noticeable, albeit piecemeal, results. In Delhi too the government’s insistence on drawing a bus lane on the city’s major roads has been accepted overnight, and largely implemented. The lessons from such sporadic but crucial initiatives are apparent and inspiring.
The need here is to return to the basics, with courage and coordination. All that is required is available: A newly power-packed Motor Vehicles Act, a decentralised federal structure, down to the level of district and panchayat administration, and the Supreme Court committee on road safety and its regular monitoring of the related issues. What is further required is a specific regime whereby road safety authorities are given clear targets for reducing road crashes over a defined period. Further, the same should be subjected to close and regular monitoring, review and accountability.
It is proposed to set up smaller areas, parts of major roads and highways, as “ideal” road safety zones. There may not be any overnight reduction in the rate of accidents, and immediate improvement in road discipline, but these zones will incubate locally suitable, comprehensive safe road practices, and a flawless culture of road safety.
To begin with, identify the two worst roads in a specific area:
• Notify each identified road as a Zone of Excellence (ZOE) in road safety (RS)
• This could include a state or national highway/road/part thereof and adjoining areas
• Provide road marking/written instructions on road-surface/road signage
• Take care to provide lanes for emergency vehicles, cyclists, pedestrians etc, as feasible
• Ensure adherence to basic traffic rules/ safety norms. Create multiple checkpoints (CP), every 2-4 kms for example, with each CP supported by road safety volunteers in addition to police
• Use tech aids, judiciously combined with manual interventions/ volunteers
• Supplement enforcement with road safety education/ awareness measures
• Station ambulances and lift cranes for swift response to accidents
• Make reliable arrangements with hospitals/ trauma centres through formal MoUs
• The singular goal of each ZoE is to meet the defined targets in reducing road crashes
The administrative structure for the implementation of road safety can be set up in three tiers.
Tier 1 would be the Managing Group (MG), which would look after day-to-day operations and would be autonomous and financially empowered. It will have representatives from the police, transport and health sectors, the public works department and representatives from the elected body at the local or state level and would be headed exclusively by a senior civil servant or police official. The MG would meet daily to introspect, analyse issues, incorporate suggestions and assign tasks. It would organise training and refresher programmes for traffic police and road safety volunteers. There would also be road safety refresher programmes for existing drivers under a police station or RWA.
Tier 2 would have district level monitoring. Exclusive personnel would be earmarked for ZoEs with a district. This is where urgent solutions would be sought, budgetary allocations made and review modes fixed. It would also ensure adherence to targets.
Tier 3 would have top management and control, represented at the level of the Union or state government. It is at this level that a dynamic road-safety ecosystem would be developed. Existing road safety institutions would either be dismantled or rejuvenated, and there would be monthly reviews, with directions, accountability and disciplinary action.
The expected results would include:
• A logical, simple, practical and convincing model that would add new perspective to road safety measures
• A potentially effective action plan, plus a dynamic live-experiment lab for road safety
• Application of best practices, both local and global
• Proactive engagement of elected public representatives, NGOs, RWAs, educational institutes and voluteers
• An evolving standing expert think tank
• Revitalisation and development of existing and new institutions of road safety
• Employment generation
• Traffic decongestion and lane discipline
• A “carnival of road safety on the ground” overnight, throughout the country, which would make road safety visible and respectable
• A model that would be replicable in other low and middle-income countries
The writer is an ex-bureaucrat and Member, National Road Safety Council, Government of India
