Killer Road accidents
The bitter truth is India stands at number one spot in the entire world as far accidents and deaths are concerned. Five hundred deaths a day only by road accidents is a shocking figure and the crucial factors responsible for the same are roads, drivers, machines and corruption involved as it’s one of the easiest job to get a driving license and in most cases it’s not necessary to go inside the office of license issuing office to get a driving license as the agents sitting outside the office complete all formalities within very short time charging extra amount that saves applicant lot of trouble and time. There is a popular joke, you can fail any test in India but not a driving test the ultimate result of such untrained drivers who hardly know road rules etc is for everyone to see we have lost more than 1.2 million people and 5 million seriously injured during the last decade.
Now, look at the machines the best five selling cars in India that publicize for their road safety measures have failed on international standards which means these cars were not fit to run on the roads but our safety authorities did not consider those standards applicable for our roads or kept their eyes closed for their own interests and as expected these vehicles became the reason of accidents. Our roads which are nowhere near the international standards also suffer due to corrupt practices in between government employees and contractors responsible for road construction have converted into killers responsible for killing hundreds at an average on daily basis.
Road accidents are proving to be the biggest life hunters in our country and increasing by the year. More than one hundred and fifty thousand people were killed and even greater number injured in our country last year only. Just imagine the mental and financial condition of those families whose loved ones were killed or seriously injured in those fatal accidents. Most families which lose a life of a family member or left seriously injured get broken on many fronts especially on economical as well social security and even worse if the main bread earner dies in such accidents. Our government pays compensation at different levels but no compensation is enough or can really compensate for a lost life. The government pay the compensation at their level to the family of deceased or injured but the question remains to be answered is when will be the governments and society wake up to see the real problem and do the needful.
Road accidents and driving conditions
Most of the road accidents in our country take place due to drivers’ faults and the statics will tell you such faults account for more than 75% of the total road accidents. So, unless our governments do not act immediately to correct this situation and keep the attention on training the drivers properly, enforcing road safety laws more strictly and try to reduce corruption in transport management system at all levels the situation will not change. The need is to enforce the law strictly and train the drivers to follow the rules. I don’t see a reason why most drivers in our country do not want to use seat belts, do not hesitate over speeding or do not mind entering ‘no entry’ zones.
Why our two wheeler drivers refuse to wear helmets, carry more than allowed passengers openly and drive against the stream without any fear of law. The reasons are simple and everyone knows the answer either they will never be caught or even if caught will settle for a petty amount. Parents always find a fault when their minor children become victims of road accidents and lose their lives driving a two wheeler but they never see their own fault of allow driving in the first place. I find it ridiculous when I see the entire community come and block keeping the dead body of fifteen year old deceased on the road that was killed while driving a motorbike in acrobatic way in a road accident. In fact, if the driver of the truck is responsible for the accident the child and parents are equally or more responsible for such accidents.
You will be surprised to note road accidents account for almost 35% deaths of all untimely deaths in our country and the deaths by heavy vehicles take the biggest chunk of all such deaths. There is no doubt that trucks are major reasons of deaths and the worst part is that truck drivers themselves are worst victims of these accidents. The irony lies in the fact these drivers which come from poor rural Indian society suffer due to substandard roads and machines. The truck drivers coming from financially weaker section of the society join the industry at the age of 16-17 as helper/cleaner and climb through the ladder to become drivers paying bribes for obtaining a driving license.
There is another fact that is also equally responsible for road accidents that most of these drivers are lowly paid therefore forced to work overtime on long distance journeys that takes a heavy toll and also makes them habitual of drugs and alcohol. Now, you can easily guess the outcome of effect of no timely sleep, alcohol, rash driving in order to reach to the destination in time and poor road conditions in addition to mental stresses enforced by the traffic police for illegal collection at every point. And while talking about illegal collection by traffic authorities at different level which is no more a secret we should not forget the fact that if we calculate the entire amount throughout the country the illegal collection accounts for billions of rupees per day. I don’t remember the name of the international organization that did the survey in 2007 but I had read it somewhere that the figure will roughly touch $4.5 billion per annum. Now, that was in 2007 but the way corruption is touching newer highs every day we should not be surprised to see if the figure touches $8 billion or more today. If we could stop the delay due to the corrupt activities at different points the productivity can increase up to 50% that will also account for billions of rupees helping the cause of transport industry and low consumption of diesel ultimately helping the Indian economics. Some of the profit was likely to go to tuck drivers improving their financial and mental health that would certainly help reduce road accidents.
There is another problem and that is related to condition of the trucks. Initially the 16 feet long trucks having the carrying capacity of 9-10 tones with two axles generally carried 16-20 tones but as the demand increased the length of trucks increased to 40 feet and number of axles also increased accordingly. However, the corrupt system still allowed overloading by 30-40 % which was not supported by Indian road conditions and poor maintenance of machines. The result is for everyone to see, the number of accidents are increasing with every passing year and taking a heavy toll on human life. I can give you a rough estimate of last year when there were over 1, 50,000 dead and 5, 00,000 seriously injured in road accidents.
Road safety bill 2014
The newly elected government is working on a new road safety bill that will touch many such points including overloading, goods out of the carrier’s body while in transit etc will be responsibility of owner of the truck and will attract very heavy fine compared to existing fines that should help the cause but unless the corruption is not brought under check it will be futile effort as it will only increase the rate of corrupt officers and the problem will remain the same. The need is to kill the evil at its root. We should know that the conditions on Indian roads are almost equal to terrorism and driving in India is like inviting death at any moment.
To prevent accidents
1. There is an immediate need of corruption free law enforcement to see there is no drunken driving and the drivers stay within stipulated speed.
2. A driver must hold a valid license and should have passed all road rules appearing in a proper driving test.
3. Road conditions should meet the necessary safety requirements and traffic signals and lights and direction boards in place. The roads should have proper dividers and reflection prevention to reduce the possibilities of road accidents.
4. All road safety measures should be followed strictly and the law enforcement agencies should be less with all modern facilities that helps keep law under control.
5. The traffic controlling authorities should have trained paramedic personals besides ambulance and cranes etc in case of emergency conditions.
6. The two wheeler drivers should use helmets to avoid head injuries which are the major causes of death in road accidents.
7. Talking on mobile phones should be strictly prohibited during driving a vehicle.
We are Number one but from the bottom
Road safety measures in fact are considered at the top of political priorities in developed countries for instance the United States of America applied US road safety act way back in 1960s with a sole purpose of keeping a perfect coordination in matters regarding highway safety in between federal and state governments a similar situation like our center government and state governments but their interests on safety measurements relations do not depend on political differences. The national highway traffic safety administration of America is central system responsible for all safety related to roads, deaths, financial loses and injuries without any interference coming from state level.
There are almost similar safety authorities in Australia and Britain providing an effective network for keeping a perfect safety to their vast road network. These authorities are also responsible for checking the safety related issues in all vehicles, study of drivers’ behavior and keeping a detailed database of all related studies needed in safety measurements. These authorities keep a ‘vision zero’ in their mind to provide absolute accident free road transport and also keeping a complete coordination with all concerned departments including insurance sector and automobile designing according to need of the customer and safety measures.
Careless attitude
According to our law commission we can reduce at least 50% deaths immediately provided we could give them medical help within one hour of accident but as per our records almost 80-90% people do not get any help within one hour that is considered golden hour according to Indian journal of medical surgery. The fact that not only the government service is unavailable to injured during crisis period but even the onlookers avoid to come forward to help fearing the unnecessary problems created by Indian law and police. The worst that happens in such cases is the need of appearing in courts as a witness repeatedly or as long the cases is not settled. A friendly law in favor of helping hands can help save thousands of lives.
Substandard facilities for school buses
We all know we have a very bad record of accidents and mishandling of our children school buses and school managements and private bus operators responsible for safe travel to and from school of children are least bothered in this matter. You will be surprised to read that almost 27 million school children travelling in more than 5, 00000 buses everyday throughout the country in substandard conditions besides almost similar number by other even more risky mode of transportation causing accidents in different parts of the country.
Conclusion
There is a very simple question from the people in general of this country and that is what stops us from following the traffic rules? Let me give an example here, isn't that we all wear clothes according to whether like we change into woolens when we feel cold or go for cotton dresses during summers then why we feel shy using helmet or using a seat belt while driving a car? Why can’t we stop talking on mobile phones while driving a scooter or a car or what is the need of drinking of alcohol when we know we have to drive a vehicle? After all we are losing a large number of our human population in road accident on daily basis.
Image source- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_collision