Road accidents are claiming hundreds of lives every day in India. As a result, Indian roads have earned the dubious distinction of being the most unsafe in the world. As per government records, 1.33 lakh people were killed in road accidents in 2020. Out of these casualties, most deaths took place on national and state highways, the lifeline of economic activities. Indian highways (both national and state) have claimed 47, 984 lives in 2020, despite the fact that restrictions including complete lockdown, were in place for a large part of the said year. Otherwise, the death tally may have crossed the 2019 figure of 53, 782 deaths on highways. Clearly the situation is alarming to say the least and the authorities should work overtime to prevent the loss of precious lives.
Amongst various reasons, excessive speeding causes nearly 60 per cent of deaths on Indian highways. It may be mentioned here that road connectivity has vastly improved in the country since the ‘golden quadrangle’ project initiated by former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in 1996. The project was aimed to connect all major metropolitan cities lying in Eastern, Western, Southern and Northern parts of the country with international grade roads. Beyond a doubt, the project has been a successful one as it has increased business activities by reducing travel time considerably. But while constructing these highways, various safety norms were ignored as a result of poor road engineering and lack of farsightedness. For example, strict vigil including installation of CCTV cameras is a must to prevent over speeding. So far, many Indian highways are devoid of this crucial facility. Moreover, there are inadequate medical units stationed in the highways to provide first-aid to accident victims. It is argued that in many cases, victims died due to lack of proper and timely medical attention. The situation demands immediate and extensive use of technology on Indian highways to prevent accidents.
Use of mobile phones while driving and drunken driving are two other reasons behind such a high fatality rate on Indian highways. While CCTV cameras may help in punishing the offender, manual and surprise vigil should be initiated to prevent drink and drive cases. It is a fact that the present strength of our police force is not enough to conduct such an intensive watch on our ever expanding highways. So, the gravity of the situation demands that the government may think of raising another monitoring force especially aimed at making highways safe on the lines of Railway Protection Force (RPF). Alongside to this, the government can impose hefty fines for traffic rule violations by issuing real time challans. Many consider this step will help in curbing careless driving on the highways. One should remember that national and state highways are just 10 per cent of the total road network in India, but it causes an abnormally high percentage of deaths. It’s time to put an end to such unnecessary loss of valuable lives.