Reasons why Indian roads are dangerous, other than bad driving

NEW DELHI: Kochi, Vadodara and Thiruvananthapuram seem to be more pedestrian friendly than many metros as less than 10% of the footpaths in these cities are encroached on, a field audit carried out for the Supreme Court Committee on Road Safety has indicated. On the other hand, Rajkot, Ahmedabad and Hisar are at the bottom with more than 80% of the total footpath length in these cities encroached upon.

The survey done by IIT-Delhi, DIMTS and The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) as a part of an audit conducted for the apex court panel covered 32 cities in eight states — Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Rajasthan, Kerala, Haryana and Punjab. It analysed about 1,550 kilometres of roads in urban areas.

The states covered in the survey cumulatively accounted for about 50% of the total of 1.47 lakh people who were killed last year in road accidents across the country.

The audit also covered other aspects of moving on roads, including the availability of footpaths for pedestrians and road marking and road signage complying with the norms set by the Indian Roads Congress (IRC). In 15 out of the 32 cities, more than 30% of the road signage was not as per the IRC standards while not a single road out of the 45km surveyed complied with the norms.

On adhering to road markings as per IRC norms, most of the cities fare well barring Rajkot, Nagpur, Mumbai and Gurgaon, where non-compliance was as high as 65%. Signage and road marking are crucial as these help guide road users. Following the IRC norms for signage and road markings brings uniformity across the country, said a road transport ministry official.

However, a section of road safety experts said that just placing signage does not serve any purpose if these are not linked to the legal framework.
“You put a zebra crossing at an uncontrolled stretch to give safe passage to pedestrians. But in many cases, across cities, you will find that zebra crossings are at traffic signals,” said an expert who did not wish to be named.

Underlining why walking is becoming dangerous in urban areas despite there existing a good network of footpaths, the survey points to the phenomenon of rampant encroachment.

In 19 of the total 32 cities covered in the survey, more than 70% of the footpaths are encroached upon. “The city administration and traffic police must do more to make footpaths free of encroachments, including from shops extending their counters or people parking their vehicles. That has to be the pre-condition if we expect people to walk more in urban areas,” said Amar Srivastava of India Road Safety Collaboration, a not-for-profit organisation of students.

According to last year’s road accident report, nearly 20,500 pedestrians died in crashes, which was 66% higher than the casualty figure for 2014, which stood at 12,330.