Over speeding & rash driving killing thousands of people on Indian roads

Lakshmana Venkat Kuchi *

Is it surprising that India “kills” many of her children and adolescents in avoidable road accidents ? It is true and absolutely shocking that India has been steadily “killing” its children, adolescents, and adults at the rate of at least 400 per day since the past few years, and the tragedy is that we as a Nation are unable to do much to prevent these avoidable deaths.

It is not complicated rocket science that is needed, but a series of simple, common sensical changes of doing things, like taking a good look at surroundings, driving slowly, and safely, so that rashness quotient in our lives comes down, especially when driving. Because many of the people on the roads are preoccupied with own thoughts, pressures and pains and are prone to accidents of any nature.

It could be a mild shoulder jab as one brushes against one another on crowded pavements, or that scrape against the oncoming vehicle or someone bumping into your stationary vehicle at the traffic signal. These are lesser impact brushes, but the ones that occur when vehicles are over speeding and hit the “unintended by sitting ducks” of targets like someone crossing the road, or driving a two-wheeler or just about anything, are the ones that are life threatening and life-taking. And in the cases of unluckier ones, result in life-changing injuries for which the victims pay in ways more than one.

Some are bed-ridden for long years, or for life.

It was on this very crucial aspect of life, Road Accidents and with special focus on the more defenceless and vulnerable sections of the society – Children, that UNICEF got together traffic and trauma experts, administrators, media persons and creative professionals – RJ jockeys, writers, poets and civil society members – for a National Media Workshop at Gandhinagar in Gujrat over October 15 and 16 at the International Automobiles Centre for Excellence run jointly by the Government of Gujarat and automobile major Maruti Suzuki Motors, to deliberate on the problem and come up with workable solutions.

India has committed to reduce the traffic related accident deaths by half by the year 2030 in a global effort to minimise deaths on the road as per a programme chalked out by the United Nations. The UN has under its Umbrella programme been observing the UN Decade of Action for Road Safety 2021-2030, and its target is to halve the road traffic deaths and injuries by 2030.

No better time than to start doing it today, as the statistics are shocking when it comes to death of children in accidents. Globally there are 2 deaths every minute, and over 3200 per day, in road traffic crashes that remain the leading killer of children and youth aged between 5 and 29 years.

India tops the world in road crash fatalities, with more than 400 deaths every day. And here is another statistic that reveals our collective rash and negligent driving collectively–India has only 1 percent of the world vehicular population, but accounts for 11 percent of all road accident deaths and 6 percent of all road crashes in the world. In just one last decade alone, road crashes have killed more than 1.3 million and injured over 5 million people in India.

And the sad reality is that most of the deaths were preventable, as over speeding remained the biggest cause of the road accident fatalities, followed by other avoidable reasons–not following traffic rules and regulations, often that are flouted by riders and “permitted” by road traffic police administration.

Which brings us to the fact that the problem has really grown and is growing, given the pace at which the population of vehicles is increasing in the country with each passing day. And so is the population of people driving on the roads, most without adequate training in driving. Looked at in one sense, there is an army of “angry, sullen, confused, ill-equipped and ‘“licensed killers’” on the road.

Yes, everyone holding a driver’s license is also equally guilty of traffic violations as those driving without holding a valid driving license ever.

Even a cursory look can be shocking as to the extent and depth of the problem. But the tragedy become bigger given the fact that only simple steps and interventions that are needed to be taken collective to make our roads safer for everyone, and especially for children around the school zones, parks, and playgrounds that children frequent.

Experts at the workshop, many who have been working on the issue of road safety, lament that often it is a behavioural issue and one of wrong attitude of the people coming out on the roads that is responsible for many or majority of the accident deaths. They are clearly avoidable, if only people followed traffic rules and stayed alert and a tad careful.

Dr G Gurunath, FAMS, Road Safety Advisor, and ex Director, NIMHAMS, Bangalore, came up with an excellent presentation of the Problem and the Solution in a talk lasting some half an hour, outlining the basic science behind road safety. He wondered why the developed west has minimised road accident deaths, while a country like India behaved as if “it is someone else’s problem and not mine” and Indians continue to drive in a manner that kills many people.

The experts are one in asserting that the deaths on the roads are, of course are the ones that are avoidable. But... They keep happening. Road crashes are increasing at a rate of 10 percent annually in India, barring during the Covid when there was a drastic fall in accidents, because there was a shutdown.

Consensus among the experts was that firstly we need to understand why the accidents happen and then come up with product (vehicle corrections) and more important behavioural changes (issues) of the people – to begin to tackle the problem on the ground – rising accident cases and corresponding increase in deaths.

On evaluation the most important aspect that can reduce number of deaths on roads is speed management, as over speeding is the biggest cause of fatalities in road accidents. In fact, management of speed is critical, and, on this aspect, implementation must be strict and severe, both, as the speed-lovers trigger deaths and all such drivers are ‘guilty’ of culpable homicide not amounting to murder. But, in common man’s parlance they can be dubbed killers without motives.

They must first be reined in, even if needed with cancellation of license for repeated offenses of over-speeding, regardless of age, affiliations, race, or status.

But if the solutions are simple, why are we failing as a nation? There are at least 15 different departments that are connected to road safety issues, and each one does it bit, and sometimes are indifferent to, and the problem instead of getting tackled becomes bigger and bigger, till a big accident occurs.

There will be some media activity too for a few days, and things are back to square one, till the next big crash wakes the Nation up.

And the cycle continues.

We need to break this and get into a round-the-clock-campaign mode to reduce accident deaths and save lives by coming together and doing it collectively–the Government, the traffic administration, experts, and the media, to constantly keep the right messages going to the masses.