{"id":216902,"date":"2022-12-02T21:57:09","date_gmt":"2022-12-02T16:27:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=216902"},"modified":"2022-12-03T08:38:12","modified_gmt":"2022-12-03T03:08:12","slug":"safer-roads-for-a-greener-more-sustainable-environment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/safer-roads-for-a-greener-more-sustainable-environment\/","title":{"rendered":"Safer roads for a greener, more sustainable environment"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Source<\/strong>&#8211; The post is based on the article <strong>\u201cSafer roads for a greener, more sustainable environment\u201d <\/strong>published in <strong>The Hindu <\/strong>on <strong>2nd December 2022<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Syllabus: <\/strong>GS3- Environment pollution<\/p>\n<p><strong>Relevance<\/strong>&#8211; Causes of environmental pollution<\/p>\n<p><strong>News<\/strong>&#8211; The article explains the linkages between road safety and clean environment.<\/p>\n<h5><strong>How do road accidents lead to environmental pollution?<\/strong><\/h5>\n<p>Most vehicles contain <strong>toxic metals <\/strong>such as lead, mercury, cadmium or hexavalent chromium, which are detrimental to the environment. <strong>Fuel and fluid leaks<\/strong> are seen at crash sites.<\/p>\n<p>Severe road crashes lead to automobile wreckage. It becomes a part of unusable end-of-life vehicles. This gives rise to scrappage.<\/p>\n<h5><strong>What are issues with vehicle scrappage in India?<\/strong><\/h5>\n<p>India is estimated to have about 22.5 million end-of-life vehicles by 2025.<\/p>\n<p>India\u2019s <strong>National Automobile Scrappage Policy<\/strong>, launched in 2021, is still in its nascent stages.<\/p>\n<p>There is absence of <strong>widespread, systematic facilities<\/strong> dedicated to their proper recycling. vehicles after road crashes as well as old <strong>end-of-life automobiles<\/strong> are left to rot by the wayside.\u00a0 These end up at landfills or at <strong>informal recycling facilities <\/strong>where they are dismantled unscientifically. This leads to the leakage of <strong>hazardous constituents <\/strong>such as oils, coolants and glass wool.<\/p>\n<h5><strong>How are road safety and environmental sustainability intertwined concepts?<\/strong><\/h5>\n<p>In 2020 alone, speeding was responsible for 91,239 road crash fatalities. It comprises 69.3% of all road crash deaths registered.<\/p>\n<p>Simulation exercises in Europe have demonstrated that cutting motorway speed limits even by 10 km\/h can deliver 12% to 18% fuel savings for current technology passenger cars. It can lead to significant reduction in <strong>pollutant emissions<\/strong>, particularly Nitrogen Oxides and particulate matter, from diesel vehicles.<\/p>\n<h5><strong>What is the Zero-Fatality Corridor solution for road safety by the SaveLIFE Foundation?<\/strong><\/h5>\n<p>All road safety initiatives undertaken and recommended by the SaveLIFE Foundation are designed to be <strong>impactful and environment-friendly<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>It was deployed on the Mumbai-Pune Expressway in 2016. It helped bring down road crash fatalities by 52%, as of 2020.<\/p>\n<p>Initiatives included guarding <strong>natural hard structures<\/strong> such as trees using <strong>crash barriers <\/strong>to prevent direct collisions. It also includes\u00a0 installing r<strong>etro reflective signage<\/strong> on the trees to make them more visible to commuters.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Missing or inadequate signages<\/strong> are another leading cause of road crashes. It is a common standard practice to use asbestos for creating these signages.<\/p>\n<p>Asbestos has an adverse impact on the environment. The ZFC programme opts only for <strong>long-lasting, high-quality, non-hazardous<\/strong> material for signage. Aluminium Composite Panels are employed for signages. It is free of toxic gas or liquids during the production process. It is also recyclable separately.<\/p>\n<h5><strong>What is the way forward?<\/strong><\/h5>\n<p>Roads and the environment are inseparable spaces. They are not just our shared resources but also our joint responsibility. T<\/p>\n<p>herefore, safer roads and a sustainable environment can be ensured only through the joint efforts of road-owning agencies, enforcement officials and the public.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Source&#8211; The post is based on the article \u201cSafer roads for a greener, more sustainable environment\u201d published in The Hindu on 2nd December 2022. Syllabus: GS3- Environment pollution Relevance&#8211; Causes of environmental pollution News&#8211; The article explains the linkages between road safety and clean environment. How do road accidents lead to environmental pollution? Most vehicles&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/safer-roads-for-a-greener-more-sustainable-environment\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Safer roads for a greener, more sustainable environment<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10320,"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-216902","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":1702097840},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216902","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\/10320"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=216902"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216902\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=216902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=216902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=216902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}