Travel Safely on the Roads!

Road accidents, in truest sense, are a human tragedy. They involve high- scale human suffering and monetary costs in terms of untimely deaths, injuries and loss of potential income. Although we have undertaken many initiatives and are implementing various road safety improvement program the overall situation as revealed by data is far from satisfactory.

Going by the facts and figures, during the calendar year 2010, there were close to 5 lakh road accidents in India, which resulted in more than 1.3 lakh persons. These numbers translate into a road accident every minute, and one road accident death every 4 minutes. Unfortunately, more than half the victims are in the economically active age group of 25-65 years. The loss of the main bread winner can be catastrophic.

Theoretical models suggest that the number of fatalities in India is not likely to start to decline for many years to come unless new policies are implemented. Based on the present analysis, the following six areas are identified as having potential for substantially reducing fatalities in India:

Pedestrians and other non-motorists in urban areas: Make lanes for their easy walking and traveling must be taken well care off for their safety and effective livelihood. This would prevent accident and also save on time while making way down on roads, for both the people in vehicles and on their foot.

Safe driving mechanisms: ensuring speed limit driving, wearing seat-belt before stepping the foot on the accelerator, keeping the phones aisde while driving, music on lower volumes to be able to hear to the horn sounds, and also keeping oneself vigilant to the traffic signals on the roads.

Motorcycles and small cars in urban areas: The vehicles for the urban, sub-urban,  and rural  should be adequately allocated to prevent any mishap and accident that would prove disaster for the individual, family and country on a whole. Road safety, rules and design  must be adequately taken care off while going for booking initially, serving as a safety measure for the later traveling.

Over-involvement of trucks and buses: There must be separate lanes for the vehicles carrying goods and luggage, so that they move in their lanes and do not interrupt the traveling on roads and also ensure the prevention of fatal accidents on roads due to the collision or any other mishap like break failure, etc that might happen on roads.

Night-time driving : Night-time driving should be prevented as the lighting is not good enough to support the heavy traffic. So, less traffic must be there on roads. People must make their travel times conveniently designed and ensure their safety.

Wrong-way drivers on divided highways: The driving penalties and fines for wrong side travelling must be strict enough to fuse in the fears among the individuals for breaking down the rules. This would largely ensure road safety and force for the better means of safety for people on the roads.

Road traffic accidents are amenable to remedial action. Many a countries have curbed the menace of road accidents by adopting a multi-pronged approach to road safety that encompasses broad range of measures, such as, traffic management, design and quality of road infrastructure, application of intelligent transport system, safer vehicles, law enforcement, effective and quick accident response and care etc. The Government alone cannot tackle road safety problems. There is a need for active involvement of all stake- holders to promote policy reform and implementation of road safety measures.

Addressing road safety is comprehensive manner underscores the need to involve multiple agencies and sectors like health, transport and police. The present study provides the magnitude and various dimensions of road accident in India. The analysis on road accidents in this study will help to create awareness, guidelines and assist in informed decision making on road safety.