Lack of political will blamed for dismal road safety record

New Delhi: India suffers a staggering loss of Rs1 trillion (Dh74.5 billion) every year due to road accidents, according to the International Road Federation (IRF), which says the country lacks the "political will" to tackle the issue.

"The losses due to road accidents have crossed Rs1 trillion annually. The sad part is the establishment knows it. These figures are present in their own records and despite this, there's no political will to resolve the problem," IRF president K.K. Kapila told IANS.

IRF is a non-profit organisation working for development and maintenance of better and sustainable networks.

According to Planning Commission studies, the total losses to the economy due to road accidents in 1999-2000 were Rs550 billion, some 3 per cent of the country's GDP.

Kapila's numbers mean the losses have almost doubled in the last decade. The losses take into account victim-related costs, property damage and administrative costs. He said stringent checks should be established to curb rising drunken driving.

Stringent punishments

"The Supreme Court judgement calling for stringent punishments for drunken driving, especially when the driver kills someone, is exemplary but we need to follow the ruling in letter and spirit," he said.

However, "the entire environment is polluted", he claimed, citing short tempers on roads and low regard for traffic rules, by both motorists and pedestrians.

The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) says 130,000 people were killed in road accidents in 2010. At a recent conference on road safety, Delhi Joint Commissioner of Police (Traffic) Satyendra Garg agreed that many of the penalties set by the Motor Vehicle Act of 1988 were outdated.

Giving last year's data, Garg said police arrested some 800,000 traffic violators but archaic penalties are not enough to deter the culprits. The lack of regard for traffic rules and nominal fines are just part of the bigger jigsaw puzzle, said Harman Singh Siddhu of ArriveSafe, a non-government organisation working for road safety.

"The UN declared 2011-2020 as ‘Decade of Action for Road Safety'. But not even a token event was held in India. This shows our [lack of] seriousness about the issue," he said.

New initiative

He added that the National Road Safety and Traffic Management Board Bill has yet to see the light of day, even though "India accounts for about 10 per cent of road accident fatalities, despite having only 1 per cent of the world's vehicle population". The bill seeks to establish a panel for the development and regulation of road safety, traffic management system and safety standards in highway design and construction.

Even countries like Vietnam, Cambodia and Uganda have adopted the Global Helmet Vaccine Initiative with positive results but a lack of dedication has kept the country's road safety record dismal, Siddhu said.

Perpetually in the red