Context: India, which has one per cent of the world's vehicles, accounts for 10 per cent of all road crash victims, the latest World Bank report on road safety.

Note: Crash Victims are those person who suffers from a destructive or injurious action in an automobile accident.

Issues

• According to Union Road Transport and Highways Minister statements "Indian roads witness 415 deaths per day in accidents, the highest in the world".
• According to the Road Accident Report for 2019, a total number of 449,002 accidents took place in India during the calendar year 2019, leading to 151,113 deaths and 451,361 injuries.
• "For India, it's one per cent of the world's vehicles and 10 per cent of the crash victims.
• "Unfortunately, the road crashes have not been going down and any time 10 per cent of the capacity in hospitals is being used for the treatment crash victims.

Key Impact

• "The financial impact of the crash is much more on poorer households than on better-off households. 
• It is much higher on women who have to take care of the burden of caregiving. 
• It is much higher on those who rely on foot and also in the informal sector.

What needs to be done?

• Emergency health care facilities in the vicinity of highways make a huge difference in addressing the challenge of road safety.
• As like when we plan highways now, we need to make sure that crash victims are getting care within the first hour of the crash. That very often makes the difference between life and death.
• In the countries having credible data collection and generation related to its enforcement, the number of roads and traffic accidents is going down.
• Global auto manufacturers should equip their vehicles in India with the same safety standards that they do in the United States and Europe.
• The UN Special Envoy for Road Safety is working with the vehicle manufacturers association, to not have doubled standards," adding that this has to be addressed from both sides.

India's Effort

• Indian government in recent years has taken significant steps to address the issues related to road safety.
• Last year, India amended its Motor Vehicle (Amendment) Act, which is "bringing a lot of innovation" in terms of financing, protection and enforcement to the fore.
• Highway corridors in India that have a very coordinated healthcare and emergency health care of access, in terms of hospitals, trauma centres for emergency treatment, make a huge difference in terms of whether a crash victim recovers or passes away".
• The goal of reducing the road crashes by half by 2030, is achievable, he asserted, noting that the foundation for this has been laid out in India.

Steps taken Indian Government

• India has signed the Brasilia declaration and committed to reduce the number of deaths and injuries from road traffic accidents.

Motor Vehicles Amendment Act, 2019

• It hikes the penalties for traffic violations, defective vehicles, juvenile driving, etc.
• It provides for a Motor Vehicle Accident Fund, which would provide compulsory insurance cover to all road users in India for certain types of accidents.
• It also provides for a National Road Safety Board, to be created by the Central Government through a notification.
• The act also provides for the protection of good samaritans.

Justice K.S. Radhakrishnan Committee

• Supreme Court had set up the three-member KS Radhakrishnan panel on road safety in 2014. The SC had termed the roads in India as “giant killers”.

Road Ahead

• Building a safe infrastructure is one of the key aspects of addressing this major challenge. We need to make sure that we have adequate roadside barriers. We need to make sure that traffic calming areas are being put in. The roads have to be safe. The vehicles have to be safe too.
• If we don't have an appropriate vehicle inspection system then you have unsafe vehicles on the road, and it's clearly documented that unsafe vehicles are actually contributing to crashes.