[bhp1]

Originally Posted by Mpower

Sure, but we have one of the lowest rates of 'per-capita' automobile ownership.

Automobiles per say only are not responsible for all the accidents, over populations forces many to stay on road & they think its their home. Remember those famous incidents, where cars ran over people sleeping on road sides. Also the no. of 2 wheelers , pedestrians, rickshaws, cycles, people on foot, is huge. Add these to no. of automobiles on the roads which are of British era & there is chaos!
So, till the root cause ie. over population is not tackled, other measures will not help. Whatever roads we make or infrastructure we create, is going to be insufficient because we will never be able to match the rate of growing population.

[JagMan]

Originally Posted by 1100D

Force those cops to catch me.

Exactly the point the broken window theory makes

[Dose]

Originally Posted by anujmishra

India tops global list of deaths in road accidents-India-The Times of India

I got one article in TOI today which says India has highest number of Road Fatalities in the world.

Thanks for the TOI link. I like this article from the Guardian better because it highlights the modes of transport and refers to the type of people who die:

"Nor can most road users guess what type of vehicle they will face. Delhi alone has 48 different "modes of transport" including cows, elephants and camels, as well as cycle-rickshaws and SUVs.
Rohit Baluja of Delhi's Institute of Road Traffic Education said: "The real issue is not car design but road design. About 85% of all deaths on the roads are pedestrians and cyclists, not drivers. We do not design traffic management systems to separate different streams of traffic. In America this began in 1932."

Source: India's deadly roads officially worst in the world | World news | The Guardian

[BaCkSeAtDrIVeR]

And when we do have a traffic management /segregation system in place, what will it take to make people stick to it?

On most 4 lane high ways we have, there are two wheeler tracks. Do any two wheelers stick to them? Worse, with all the litter / construction waste/ boulders lying on the road edges, are the two wheelers safe is they stick to their own lanes?

[DKG]

Originally Posted by BaCkSeAtDrIVeR

And when we do have a traffic management /segregation system in place, what will it take to make people stick to it?

I spent a decade in Dubai and noticed something interesting about the average Indian. When the stakes are high and the penalty of losing it all looms large they all simply fall in line and follow rules and actually work better too!

On highways quite often you see trucks and three wheelers driving the wrong way because they are too lazy to drive ahead for the uturn. Confiscate the vehicle and ground it for a month. The loss in business will ensure owners make sure their drivers never break the law. Today in absence of the law being enforced you actually have people doing these crazy things as if its their right, like the morons honking at you on a red signal

To summarise what we need is a severe penalty system. Raise the bar in terms of the price paid for breaking the law. People will fall into line.

[salvation]

thanks anuj for the link!!
i would like to add here that whatever provisions we make, how many rules and regulations we make .. unless they are not implemeted strongly and we follow those rules they have got no meaning..
as it has been rightly put here that its not the wheels but the person behind the wheels that matters!
i live in chandigarh! one of the best cities in India with strict traffic law enforcement, high penalties for offence. but inspite of all rules and regualtions there are accidents on almost daily bases .
We have separate lanes for cycle, rickshaw pullers separated from main road by green patch of grass and trees. but out of 10 rickshawpullers only 2 will divert to go through these lanes. You will find them coming from opposite sides in fast moving lanes ( extreme right side) and there is good chance of accident if a bus or SUV ahead of you is blocking your view and you cant see these people coming in wrong direction. I mean its another form of suicide these guys plan to do every day.
we have homeguards doing duty from 9A.M TO 5PM on major roads diverting these guys to there respective lanes but as soon there duties are off ..these cyclists , rickshaw pullers come back on main road. I mean there are no laws for them , no fines for them. What can a motorist do.
You will find people crossing roads even if there is green lights for motorists. I have seen my city changed and it really hurts.
I am not able to convince myself to agree to theory that these rickshaw pullers are uneducated so they dont have brains for rules and regulations. Every year our city police initiates drives for these guys to make them aware about rules and regulations.
On educated masses i have seen lots of bikers (young and old) jumping the dividers coming in wrong directions as these rickshaws do.Even high penalties dont deter them.
In neighbouring Panchkula you will find even cars moving in wrong direction just to save 5 Rs of fuel but what these guys dont understand if even they got hit once in a year it is going to make up for what they have saved.
It is the habit. We have to change our habits but i guess we are part of system where if we find some laxity on part of enforcement agencies many of us will certainly take advantage of that.
What to say enforcement agencies are made up of people who are like us only so in the end it comes to attitude and habits of people. May be one day when water reaches our nose level we might start acting in proper manner.

[TheHorse]

on lighter note, we should appreciate indian drivers for successfully driving through death traps day in/ day out
Such a sad reality of Indian driving mentality, when you see educated ppl sitting in their cars running over light or braking traffic rules, what else do you expect from ppl like RikshaWala, taxiwala

[sabnavis]

Road safety education, is given only to people who take pains to get a license the legal way, pedestrians, people who stand in bus stops, cyclists and rickshaw drivers do not seem to have any road manners.

The worst being two wheelers and cab drivers, people on two whellers make the most erratic turns possible, the number of people on bikes who overtake from the left is really alarming and if something happends all that they say is " Diktha nahin hai kya!" and the cabs less spoken the better.

[Dose]

Originally Posted by DKG

I spent a decade in Dubai and noticed something interesting about the average Indian. When the stakes are high and the penalty of losing it all looms large they all simply fall in line and follow rules and actually work better too!

What are the stakes and penalties in Dubai?

Originally Posted by salvation

thanks anuj for the link!!
In neighbouring Panchkula you will find even cars moving in wrong direction just to save 5 Rs of fuel but what these guys dont understand if even they got hit once in a year it is going to make up for what they have saved.

Foolish short versus wise long term thinking.

All it takes is ONE mistake either by us or another. For example, if a person chose to buy an Indica V2 Turbo DLX (ABS and airbags) for the ex-showroom price of, according to carwale.com, 4.7 lakhs, they would save 64% versus the Fabia Ambiente 1.4 Diesel (ABS and airbags, five 3-point belts, 4-star NCAP). They would save this money short-term but they are not aware that the Indica has zero credibility when it comes to NCAP crash tests. Is saving 64% in the short term worth putting oneself and one's passengers at risk over the long-term? All it takes is ONE mistake.

[sridhga]

Originally Posted by Dose

What are the stakes and penalties in Dubai?



Foolish short versus wise long term thinking.

All it takes is ONE mistake either by us or another. For example, if a person chose to buy an Indica V2 Turbo DLX (ABS and airbags) for the ex-showroom price of, according to carwale.com, 4.7 lakhs, they would save 64% versus the Fabia Ambiente 1.4 Diesel (ABS and airbags, five 3-point belts, 4-star NCAP). They would save this money short-term but they are not aware that the Indica has zero credibility when it comes to NCAP crash tests. Is saving 64% in the short term worth putting oneself and one's passengers at risk over the long-term? All it takes is ONE mistake.

This post is interesting. Let me dissect this argument. I would like to start with extending this argument beyond Indica owners to pedestrians, cyclists, bike owners, auto-rick riders, owners of several others cars like M-800, in short 99% of the population of this nation. Let us all buy Skoda Fabia for our own safety. I would suggest that we should all buy big trucks so that we are more safe than in the tiny Fabia. What do you say?

By the way does Fabia offer side airbags. What if you get hit from the side?

[ac 427]

I am really not surprised by this report.

As an bike and a car driver for past 10 years, I have seen the way we drive and our regards to safety .

But another imp thing that everyone has missed out here is we have many incidents of a bus falling into a ravine or two buses coliding with each other. This pumps up the 'no of dead' figures up.

Today there is no regard for traffic rules, becase maybe they don't exist, even if they exist there is no one to monitor it. I mean, from our way back from Pondicherry almost every truck did not have a tail light, and in the dark everyone knows how risky it is.

Also pedestrians love to walk on the road in India, be it a highway or a main road, pedestrians are always on the road.

This was expected.
AC

[Dose]

Originally Posted by sridhga

By the way does Fabia offer side airbags. What if you get hit from the side?

Excellent question, sridhga! If only more Indians would ask safety questions like this before opening their cheque books, manufacturers would have to offer us the same safety features that Europe and the U.S. receive. In Europe, the Fabia receives optional side and curtain airbags allowing it to pass the side impact and pole tests with almost maximum points.

Of course, we should remember that it is too easy to overcome safety engineering tolerances by crashing at too high a speed. Even an extra 16 kmph is enough to begin negating the efforts of safety features:

ADAC: 50mph crash-test shows weaknesses even in top-rated cars - MotorAuthority - Car news, reviews, spy shots

VWvortex Forums: Austria's Haider dies in accident (vehicle was a Phaeton)

[TheHorse]

Originally Posted by sridhga

By the way does Fabia offer side airbags. What if you get hit from the side?

I dont think Airbags will save you from side-on fatal accident. What matters here is how safe is car's body against crash tests

[SLK]

Road accidents not car accidents!

a bus falls into river taking all passengers or crushes a bus-stand full of people has nothing to do with speed limit/abs/airbags of cars!

volumes in india come from such unfortunate incidents and not car accidents.

And then of course the 2-wheelers! they count too

Basically the whole article is out of focus!

And will end up reducing the speed limits to 30km/h did they say is harmless?

[Sudipto-S-Team]

Just a related observation on this subject that is very close to my heart (having lost several friends and relatives to avoidable accidents).
I think more people have died sitting inside Sumos on the highways than by cross-border terrorists. That vehicle just crumbles like a paper bag in an impact killing everyone inside. Do you know of any Sumo accident survivor?
On the other hand, a few days ago I saw an accident Innova being towed away. Although its front left corner was completely crushed its windshield was intact, not to speak of the passenger cabin.
Incidentally although TOI bothered to report on it now - India has always topped this particular chart for generations. There is nothing new in this record. And this statistic is not nationally maintained anywhere. What they report are the direct on the spot deaths from road accidents. Several people die after a few days in hospitals. They are not included in this statistic.