‘Negligence behind rising frequency of road mishaps’

NEW DELHI: The increasing number of road accidents, as per a NCRB report, represents the sheer negligence among drivers and vehicle users. A report received by The Sunday Guardian from SaveLIFE Foundation lists out that lack of seat belt usage, speeding, poorly parked vehicles on highways, and improper lane change/lane usage are the top human contributing factors to road crashes. The report states that no seatbelts have led to 49% of accidents, speeding has led to 39%, parked vehicles on highways have resulted in 20% and improper lane change/lane usage resulted in 18% of road crashes.
According to a study conducted by the same organisation, Guhawati, Kochi, and Patna are the top states where frequent four-wheeler users do not use the rear seat belts. The main reasons why rear seat belts aren’t worn are that 23.9% of respondents don’t know they should be worn and about 37.8% of respondents think they aren’t required to be worn. However, 48.6% of respondents are likely to use rear seatbelts while driving on the highways.
As per the NCRB report, the frequency of road accidents has increased by 16.8% owing to 15,56,22 deaths and 3,71,884 injuries in 2021. Overspeeding is believed to be the major cause of accidents leading to 87050 deaths and 228274 injuries in 2021. Careless driving/overtaking is believed to be the second cause of 103629 accidents, leading to 42853 deaths and 91893 injuries in 2021, however, driving under the influence of alcohol/drugs leads to 1.9% of accidents.
Former joint director of the Institute of Road Transport and a founder of R-Safe NGO, J. Krishnamoorthy, said, “This is a common phenomenon, but the government pays no attention to this. Road Safety month is just a ritual, every day several people are killed owing to overspeeding, no seat belts, and so on but no actions are taken. After the death of Cyrus Mistry, the government is putting all its attention on this. Unless there is continuous education with various modules at different levels and strict enforcement and proper road engineering, accidents cannot be avoided.”
Road safety expert and a former member of Kerala and Tamil Nadu road safety council, Upendra Narayan, said: “Apart from school-level road safety education and better road infrastructure, automobile manufacturing must be as per Indian roads. The increasing number of accidents showcases that the present model of road safety is a failure.”