In the recommendations made by the Group of Ministers on road safety recently, there are over 30 suggestions made on safety and security of drivers and pedestrians, licencing, and registration of vehicles, etc., but none on improvement or standardisation of roads, their design and related issues.
This is because it appears that the government views roads, their construction and related matters separately from safety of those who use them. Aren’t the two inter-linked? In December 2015, an official statement from the roads ministry said: “The government has approved a National Road Safety Policy that outlines various measures such as promoting awareness, establishing road safety information data base, encouraging safer road infrastructure including application of intelligent transport, enforcement of safety laws, etc.” So that kind of took care of the matter. It seems there are no official communications that capture any work in progress. Now to the recommendations made by the Group of Ministers which bat for a number of points that may not be directly connected to road safety, there’s online issue of learning licence, stricter evaluation at the time of grant of permanent licence or allowing licence for gearless scooters below 100 cc for 16 years-plus instead of 18 years. It also talks about allowing registration of vehicles at dealers’ end instead of RTOs’ and making dealers accountable. Take for example the suggestions made to liberalise the intra-city and city Taxi permit system and automobile aggregation policy or fixing the upper cap for the fares by the transport department. Will these measures improve road safety? How? Another suggestion is to improve parking facilities for taxies and other public transport vehicles in cities by reserving “at least 20 per cent space in public parking lots for taxis”. Will this help in reducing road accidents? The focus on road safety also gained pace in recent times as several spine-chilling accident videos captured by nearby CCTV cameras made it to hundreds of 24x7 news channels and print articles on deaths due to road accidents. A recent report stated how half the people dying in road crashes in India are in the age group of 15-35 years. When will we see strong and wide roads with automated traffic lights and remote traffic management? What about the removal of roadside ads and posters that distract and obstruct the view of drivers, and a total ban on alcohol sale on national and state highways? Till the issues of roads, their construction and standardisations are worked out alongside licencing, registration and safe driving issues, road accidents will be a sad reality. So how about creating smart roads and smart traffic management before smart cities? Anyone listening?
BW Reporters
Ashish Sinha is an experienced business journalist who has covered FMCG, auto, infrastructure, tourism, telecom among several other beats. Ashish has keen interest in the regulatory scenario impacting different sectors. He writes on aviation, railways, post and telegraph, infrastructure, defence, media & entertainment, among a wide variety of other subjects.