Recently I was dismayed to read about the tragic accident that led to the death of 42 people in West Bengal when a bus fell into a river as the driver was talking on the phone. These days, driving while speaking on a mobile phone is a common sight on Indian roads. Many major accidents are reported because of this, and blinding by high beams of opposite vehicles at night.
In 2012, an accident involving a liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) tanker truck in Kannur, Kerala at midnight killed 41 people. Reports showed that the high beam from the opposite vehicle had blinded the driver, though the explosion occurred owing to other reasons. Yet we see most of our vehicles are fitted with high-power halogen lamps that makes driving at night a nightmare.
During my long stay in France and England, I never saw anyone using the high beam inside a city or even on the outskirts. In India, as a frequent road-user on local roads in rural areas, arterial roads and national highways, I have had miraculous escapes from accidents (not because of my fault) on many occasions possibly because of my extra attentiveness. Aggressive driving, use of the cell phone while driving, drunken driving, high beams from opposite vehicles, rash driving and so on are common practices on our roads and the offenders are rarely caught.
The association for safe international road travel says nearly 1.3 million people die globally in road accidents each year, which makes for an average of 3,287 deaths a day, while 20 million to 50 million are injured or disabled. The average figure for deaths among the less-than-25 age group on the world’s roads is 1,000 a day. Road crashes cost an alarming 1-2% of annual GDP for individual countries. In India, the figure for road accident deaths every day constitutes 12% of the global accident deaths.
According to the report of the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways for 2017, road accidents in India decreased by 4.1% in 2016 as compared 2015 but fatalities rose by 3.2%. In 2016, on Indian roads 1,50,785 persons were killed and 46.3% of the road accident victims were youth in the age group 18 to 35 years. And two-wheeler users constitute 34.8% of the total deaths. The prediction is that by 2030 road accidents will become the fifth leading cause of death globally.
While it is obvious that safety measures initiated by the ministry are yielding results, it is of paramount importance to augment the pace of reforms and get our act together to avert loss of lives. We have good national highways with four to six lanes but hardly can we use them effectively to reach our destinations fast as many vehicles do not follow lane rules. Zig-zag overtaking is a common sight because trucks and buses keep to the right instead of the left. It appears that most of the bus and truck drivers are unaware that they need to keep left and allow smaller vehicles to overtake. As these vehicle keep right instead of left, other vehicles are forced to overtake from the wrong side as truck speeds are low. We often see many accidents because of lane violations.
The decision of the Union Cabinet to substantially increase penalties for traffic violations is welcome, but the present strength of traffic personnel is inadequate to enforce rules and punish violators. The main impediment is lack of resources and the high cost of technology. Then what are the solutions?
Creating traffic rule awareness among our youngsters at the school level and college level, implementation of traffic rules through civil society, implementing novel approaches to ease traffic congestion and better road engineering are some measures that may yield results. The strict enforcement of penalty for traffic rule violations with the aid of technology, is undoubtedly the best option. Sufficient funds should be made available for the installation of high-speed cameras. Some years ago, Kerala's Transport Commissioner, Rishi Raj Singh, implemented electronic monitoring and enforcement of traffic rule violations in many places, which reduced the number of accidents and deaths on Kerala roads by 40 per cent, according to police sources. Over a period of time the location electronic monitoring systems become known to road-users, which give them a chance to escape without being caught. Also, huge investment is required to install and maintain electronic surveillance systems on many locations.
In this context, I have a suggestion. As most citizens have camera phones today, the Ministry should open an online reporting portal so that citizens can report rule violations with photo or video proof. The authenticity of the complaint can be verified. Drivers talking on the phone while driving, driving on the wrong side, vehicles that spew smoke and pollute, overloaded trucks and so on can be easily recorded, with vehicle numbers, by road-users. Many citizens would be happy to volunteer to report rule violations. For clear cases of violation (for example, talking on the mobile phone), a notice along with fine details can be issued to owners of the vehicle. Also, this will empower citizens to do their bit in making our roads safe. Implementation of such a scheme does not require much investment: the fines collected should be sufficient to meet the cost. This will deter drivers from violating traffic rules and reduce road accidents significantly.
The author is a Professor at the Homi-Bhabha National Institute and a Scientist at the Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research, Kalpakkam.