As of July 3, 5.21 lakh people lost lives, globally, to the highly contagious Covid-19. Even as doctors and scientist struggle the world over to come up with the most effective treatment strategy, there is another deadlier trend that’s affecting the whole world for years, specifically India. It’s the trend of road accidents and fatalities. The annual figure for fatalities due to road accidents stand at 1.35 million. In India, 1.51 lakh lives were lost and 4.69 lakh people were injured on Indian roads in 2018.
Unlike Covid-19, there are measures available to curb or stop road accidents and fatalities. How can these measures be improved or expanded, and how can the auto industry play a stronger role will be what senior safety experts representing an OEM, Tier 1 suppliers, a government agency, a global safety watchdog and a global federation of NGOs for road safety will discuss at the sixth edition of Autocar Professional’s International Webinar on Automotive and Road Safety, on Monday, July 6, 3:00 to 4:30 p.m (India time). Autocar Professional started the annual webinar with the objective of contributing towards the cause of safer mobility, and roads. The speakers for this year’s edition are
- Rajendra Petkar, President and CTO, Tata Motors
- David Ward, President and CEO, Global NCAP
- AV Mannikar, Senior deputy director & Head -- passive safety lab, ARAI
- Ramashankar Pandey, MD, Hella India Lighting
- Lotte Brondum, ED, Global Alliance of NGOs for Road Safety
- Sudeepth Puthumana, Head of Engineering, Passive Safety & Sensorics, Continental Automotive Components India
- Alejandro Furas, Technical Director, Global NCAP
The theme of the webinar this year is, ‘Towards Safer Mobility – Achieving Vision Zero’. SAE India is supporting the webinar this year.
In terms of cleaner mobility, India has leapfrogged from BS IV to the stringent BS VI norms in a record time of a little over three years. It’s absolutely crucial that the country achieves a similar record in terms of safer mobility too. India is a signatory to the Brasilia Declaration, at the midpoint of the Decade of Action for Road Safety (2011-2020), to reduce road deaths globally. However, things are still way behind the target.
Register yourself on and hear, interact with the industry experts to learn about the new regulations by the government, efforts by industry players, technology suppliers and NGOs to make mobility and roads safer.