No safety for road minorities

Ahmedabad: Walking is the basic form of locomotion known to us, but it is also the most dangerous mode in Ahmedabad! Year on year traffic police and EMRI 108 data depicts that pedestrian and cyclist fatalities are on the rise, yet our city roads put ease of car movement at the centre of consideration for road designing. The blatant disregard for road minorities in building infrastructure makes our city roads distincly unsafe for cyclists and pedestrians.
Recently when JP India Limited, a road research firm studied more than 850 road accidents between January and July last year they found that the maximum fatalities occurred among pedestrians – 18% and cyclists 17% who met with accidents in the city.

One wonders why agencies collect accident data in the first place, when authorities hardly bother to use it to design systemic interventions. Take any portion of the road in their hierarchy — service lanes, arterial roads, highways and model roads — you’ll end up finding most of them designed in a way unfriendly to road minorities.

The road safety study also shows how in case of two-wheeler riders, accidents involving pedestrians form the second highest pool, 133 cases, while two-wheeler and car collisions are the highest — 201 cases.

However, only 2% two-wheeler rider fatalities involve accidents with pedestrians, and only 8% car accident fatalities involve collisions with pedestrians.Of two-wheeler rider fatalities the report found that in case of collisions with another two-wheeler there were 66% fatalities, the highest. In case of collisions between a two-wheeler and a truck, two-wheeler rider fatalities were 35% and in cases of accidents involving a two-wheeler and a bus, two-wheeler rider fatalities were 26%.

Data shows that of all fatalities from ‘unknown reasons’ or infrastructure shortfall in case of road accidents, pedestrians suffered 67% deaths. In case of accidents with minitrucks, pedestrians suffered 28% fatalities, and in case of truck accidents, 57% of pedestrians involved in the accidents died.

Road traffic injuries cause considerable losses to victims, their families owing to injuries, disability or hospitalisation

“Most road stretches in this city are not designed for pedestrian comfort or safety. I feel as engineers and planners we have failed to design our infrastructure while keeping them in mind,” says traffic safety expert and educator Amit Khatri.

Khatri added, “In Ahmedabad, I can point out a number of zebra crossings that end up on a road divider, or a traffic island. On SG Road, where one witnesses a high number of accidents, there are hardly any foot overbridges for pedestrians.”