{"id":184818,"date":"2022-05-16T20:55:56","date_gmt":"2022-05-16T15:25:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=184818"},"modified":"2022-05-16T20:57:34","modified_gmt":"2022-05-16T15:27:34","slug":"the-road-to-safety","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/the-road-to-safety\/","title":{"rendered":"The road to safety"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

News<\/strong>: Recently, The Delhi government has initiated a drive to enforce lane discipline<\/strong>, starting with strict compliance<\/strong> on the bus lane. Trials over the last month have thrown up several lessons<\/p>\n

What are the road-safety-related problems in India?<\/strong><\/h5>\n

Every year, around 50,000 accidents<\/strong> take place in our mega Indian cities. A quarter of them are fatal, which leads to avoidable deaths. \u00a0Nearly half of those who lose their lives are pedestrians.<\/p>\n

The burden of death is borne by the young. The opportunity cost<\/strong> of lost human lives is immense.<\/p>\n

What are the causes of traffic, accidents, and others\u2019 problems in Indian Cities, especially Delhi?<\/strong><\/h5>\n

Around half of the accidents occur on account of overspeeding\u00a0and a quarter<\/strong> are due to dangerous driving<\/strong>. Further, almost half of the accidents are due to collisions with buses and trucks.<\/p>\n

In India, in some cases, a driving license<\/strong> is obtained through wrongful means with help of an unscrupulous tout.<\/p>\n

Even obtaining a license doesn\u2019t equip a person with driving etiquette like sticking to the lane; maintaining speed and traffic signals, etc. Therefore, there is a large ga<\/strong>p between a lab environment test<\/strong> and reality<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The propensity of people to use personal vehicles<\/strong> instead of public transport also adds to the chaos. For example, Delhi has the highest per capita registration<\/strong> of personal vehicles \u2014 nearly 110 cars per 1,000 people, as against a national average of 25.<\/p>\n

Measures taken by the Delhi government (Delhi Model)<\/strong><\/h5>\n

Since 2009, In Delhi, the road deaths have gradually tapered despite increasing numbers<\/strong> of vehicles due to efforts of the Delhi Police. This has been done by working upon black spots<\/strong> by adopting traffic-calming measures<\/strong>\u00a0and enhanced enforcement<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

In case of deviations from the lane, the bus driver<\/strong> will invite harsh penalties. It would be useful to look at the skill sets<\/strong> of Indian drivers<\/strong>. A driving skill test confirms the ability of the driver to wield the wheel<\/p>\n

To obtain a driving license – Delhi now has automated driving test centres<\/strong>, which have reduced the margin of human intervention<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Delhi’s government is working on road design <\/strong>to accommodate all users fairly.<\/p>\n

Delhi Traffic Police has installed speeding cameras in the city, with an automatic number plate recognition system<\/strong>. This has led to a spike in the number of challans and a slowdown of vehicles in the city.<\/p>\n

The Way Forward<\/strong><\/h5>\n

To obtain a driving license<\/strong>: the simulator tests<\/strong> and psychological evaluation<\/strong> could be embedded in the regulatory framework.<\/p>\n

The city roads should be remodelled<\/strong> with intuitive road designs<\/strong> and signages<\/strong>. There should be different zon<\/strong>es of road usage for pedestrians\/cyclists, buses, and other vehicles.<\/p>\n

There should be designated pick-up and drop-off points for taxis and auto-rickshaws. In this regard, a pilot stretch<\/strong> has been redesigned collaboratively with IIT Delhi.<\/p>\n

There should be cooperation<\/strong> and coordination<\/strong> among all the important agencies directly and indirectly related to traffic problems such as the road-owning agency, the municipal body, the traffic police, and the transport enforcement wing for strict enforcement of the traffic rules.<\/p>\n

Disciplining traffic<\/strong> requires a collective behavioural change<\/strong>. Therefore, the onus of change lies as much on citizens<\/strong> as on the government. The government can deploy technology tools<\/strong> and artificial intelligence<\/strong> to cause deterrence in traffic violations.<\/p>\n

The public transport<\/strong> system can be improved with the introduction of the Mobility as a Service (MaaS) solutions<\/strong>. This will integrate all options of public mobility on a common digital platform. A commuter could then choose to hop onto a bus, metro, a cab, or an auto.<\/p>\n

A government-backed digital aggregator<\/strong> of all mobility options would make public transport more efficient and provide inbuilt solutions for last-mile and first-mile connectivity.<\/p>\n

Source<\/strong>: The post is based on an article \u201cThe road to safety\u201d published in the \u201cThe Hindu\u201d on 16th<\/sup> May 2022.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

News: Recently, The Delhi government has initiated a drive to enforce lane discipline, starting with strict compliance on the bus lane. Trials over the last month have thrown up several lessons What are the road-safety-related problems in India? Every year, around 50,000 accidents take place in our mega Indian cities. A quarter of them are… Continue reading The road to safety<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10308,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1230,9],"tags":[216,10498],"class_list":["post-184818","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9-pm-daily-articles","category-public","tag-gs-paper-3","tag-the-hindu","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1704661963},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184818","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10308"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=184818"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184818\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=184818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=184818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=184818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}