Thursday, October 11, 2018

Dinesh Kamath's Editorial 'Prevent road accidents' that was published in Newsband


Prevent road accidents
The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways have come up with the Road Accidents in India report for 2017. But it is very disappointing. There is an urgent need to reduce death and disability on the roads. There are a large number of people who die every year and the thousands who are crippled in accidents. The remedies which the report highlights are weak,
The Centre and the States should work to improve safety as a joint responsibility, although enforcement of rules is a State issue. Green commuters — cyclists/pedestrians — now face greater danger on India’s roads.
It is welcome that greater attention is being paid to the design and safety standards of vehicles, but such professionalism should extend to public infrastructure: the design of roads, their quality and maintenance, and the safety of public transport, among others.
There is little chance of the NDA government, now in the last year of its tenure, making a paradigm shift. Valuable time has been lost in creating institutions for road safety with a legal mandate. The Road Safety Councils at the all-India and State levels have simply not been able to change the dismal record, and the police forces lack the training and motivation for professional enforcement. The urgent need is to fix accountability in government.
Most of the road accidents are happening due to stray animals moving on the roads and besides the road and often people become victim of accident due to that. There is no policies to control the unexpected accident which were happening across the country. In Punjab, UP, Haryana, 50% accidents occur due to animals’ invention on highways. So government should take necessary measures to tackle the situation.
Our road culture is abominably poor. We consider public roads to be private space or at least feign to do so. We do everything thing on the road except the things the roads are created for.
The next aspect is the laxity on the part of the authority to lay good roads and to maintain them. The RTA personnel too has to play a crucial role to avert road accidents. As long as there is no proper training and exams for drivers and strict enforcement of traffic rules, this condition id NEVER going to improve.
Governments have been consistently neglecting roads maintenance, specially streets and by- lanes. Only highways are being given some importance to comfort the VIP travelers and rich people
Death of 1,47,913 people in accidents in 2017 is not a small number. Anyone can die in road accidents. Various types of vehicles are on sale. There are reckless driving. The rules of traffic should be taught from school days. In Movies and TV serials, showing car racing be stopped. Now there is no respect for cyclists and people walking on roads. There is no space for people to walk. Traffic police never bother about the speed of the vehicles but punish drivers for crossing the traffic signals. The motor manufacturers are more concerned to sell their products than preventing deaths.

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