How safe are our highways?

[Guna]

Originally Posted by manjubp

Just take an early morning ride around Bangalore one ways, you can see cars, IT company cabs, and others regularly coming wrong way.

And this is the time of the day, the city driving is extremely dangerous. Several fatal accidents have taken place during the early morning due to over speeding and driving/encountering someone coming on the wrong side. One has to look all around (literally 360 degree) in the junctions and proceed.

[rajivr1612]

Its also better if you never make eye contact with other motorists at all while driving.
Agree 100% on this point. It can help incidences of road rage to some degree at least. When you look at other drivers in the eye they may take it as a challenge. So avoid it at any cost.

[voodoochild]

Originally Posted by rajivr1612

Its also better if you never make eye contact with other motorists at all while driving.
Agree 100% on this point.

I strongly disagree here. Looking into the eyes of another driver was taught to me very early in my learning days. It can tell you a lot about what his moves will be. Generally a driver will go in the direction that he's looking/staring. His eyes will also tell you whether he has spotted you, whether he will react or not, whether the blighter is even attentive to his driving or fiddling with mobile, stereo etc.

I always make it a point to look in the driver's eyes, especially while driving/riding in city limits at intersections. There's no other way to tell what a fool Tempo driver might attempt!

Cheers,
Rahul

[RavenAvi]

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is likely to speak on road safety issues in his next Mann Ki Baat programme, scheduled to be aired on Sunday.

The high number of deaths on Indian roads (over 1.41 lakh deaths in 2014 alone!) has made the PMO (Prime Minister's Office) sit up and notice, and they have asked for details on the road crashes and safety standards from the Road Transport ministry.

This is for the first time that our country's highest political executive would be taking up this very-serious and all-important issue.

Sources said the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) on Thursday sought details on the road crashes and safety scenario from road transport ministry. The recent National Crime Records Bureau report of accidental deaths during 2014 showed how Indian roads were at their deadliest.

Even the World Health Organization (WHO) in its report on road deaths of 2013 had said the reduction in fatalities has occurred where political will has been translated into concerted and coordinated multi-sectoral actions that are based on evidence.

WHO had also evaluated that India scores just three out of 10 points in enforcement of speed limits and scores two out of 10 in enforcement of helmet and seatbelt laws. Only 50% two-wheeler drivers wear helmets, whereas just 27% wear seatbelts.

ET Auto

[RavenAvi]

The Indian government is preparing to roll out it's ambitious Pradhan Mantri Surakshit Sadak Yojana, which will make highway driving safe.

Teeing off with an initial funding of Rs 2,000 crores, this scheme will see the government taking help from IIT institutions across India to remove accident spots through better designs and improved road engineering. Special reflectors and railings will be set up on hilly roads and ghat sections and those with sharp curves will be redesigned to make them more flatter.

The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways has sought details from hill states on spots where accidents occur repeatedly. The government will take the help of the Indian Institutes of Technology to prepare special reflectors for hill roads and redesign them to fix sharp curves.

"The scheme has already been approved by the road transport minister and the corpus would be created from the available central road fund," a senior government official said.

India has the highest number of roads fatalities in the world. More than 231,000 people are killed in road traffic crashes in the country every year, according to the World Health Organisation.

"States have already been asked to send details of locations where regular accidents occur. As per our information, there are around 796 such spots across the country," the official added.

The scheme is a part of the government's national action plan aimed at halving number of road accident deaths by 2020, which includes making vehicles safer.

ET

[RavenAvi]

The Ministry for Road Transport and Highways is planning to develop an User Satisfaction Index system to rank the national highways in the country, in a bid to improve road infrastructure and to facilitate road travellers by giving them an idea of which highways are good & safe to travel, and which roads are to be avoided.

The data collection for this Index system will be done on a continuous basis through a mobile application (to be launched in August 2016) and user feedback will be taken through other modes by 2016-end, according to two government officials in the know.

Parameters for ranking the highways would include quality of the roads, availability of e-tolling, designs of the highway, greening around the roads, number of congestions faced, roadside conveniences including toilets and potable water facilities, and the time taken at toll plazas.

The ranking will also cover the crucial safety aspect, so that the number of road accidents and deaths on unsafe highways could be curbed.

India has more than 300 national highways, including stretches, with total length of one lakh kilometres. The government has set an ambitious target to double the highway length in the country by 2020.

"It has been decided that the ministry will create a highway user satisfaction index based on continuous data collection by November," said a senior Niti Aayog official, who was part of the meeting, adding that the mobile app for feedback will be launched by August. "Once the rankings are in place, states would automatically start competing to improve their national highways," the person said.

According to a senior road ministry official, improving the highway user satisfaction would be part of the upcoming ease of transportation policy that intends to focus on passenger travel experience and freight transportation experience of truckers.

Last year, the Supreme Court had said that no toll should be charged on bad road and the toll hike on Delhi-Jaipur stretch had to be withdrawn. "From an asset owning and construction department we want to transform into a services-providing department," the road ministry official said.

"The ministry earlier never focused on highway experience but now we are drawing a mechanism for all our concessionaires so that we get real time feedback from users," the person said.

ET

[RavenAvi]

Some stats shared by ACI:

For the year 2015:

Accidents per day = 1,374
Accidents per hour = 57
Road Accident fatalities in top 13 states = 83.6%
State-wise breakup:
Uttar Pradesh = 17,666
Tamil Nadu = 15,642
Maharashtra = 13,212
Karnataka = 10,856
Rajasthan = 10,510
Madhya Pradesh = 9,314
Andhra Pradesh = 8,297
Gujarat = 8,119
Telangana = 7,110
West Bengal = 6,234
Bihar = 5,421
Punjab = 4,893
Haryana = 4,879
Other states/UTs = 23,980

Reckless driving has emerged as the most prominent cause of road accidents and fatalities in the country. It accounted for 77.1 percent of total road accidents during 2015.

Due to the weak penalty system and legal loopholes, the total number of hit-and-run cases rose in 2015 to 57,083 which was 11.4 percent of the total road accidents as compared to 10.9 percent in 2014. As a result 20,709 people lost their lives last year due to hit and runs.

In Maharashtra alone, there was a loss of around Rs 15,000 crore during 2015 due to the 64,000 accidents in the state last year. The overall loss due to accidents in 2015 was close to three percent of India’s GDP.

[sathya_g_m]

Apart fron weak penalty and legal loopholes, it has to do with mentality. I drive in OMR road, Chennai daily for 50+ kms. A busy stretch and filled with cabs. I am not sure if extensive driving in traffic conditions make them that way. Most of the taxis/share autos/share vans drive recklessly. I sight at least 1 accident spot daily and now a days it is getting more fatal. Probably a separate license and test for yellow board. Also RTOs should tighten license test. Hmm. Who is listening.

[SchumiFan]

So, if we redefine what is a highway and ban two-wheelers from it, our highways suddenly become safer?

Being a regular on Chennai-Bangalore highways, I think if we only let 4+ wheelers on road, the stats would be better is my belief.

[SJM1214]

30% of Delhi-Mumbai NH unsafe for cars.

Nearly 30% of the Delhi-Mumbai and almost half of the Mumbai-Chennai stretches of the Golden Quadrilateral are unsafe for car, bus and truck occupants, according to a first-of-its-kind safety study on national highways by agencies that included the World Bank and the National Highway Authority of India.

The report said only 40km in the two corridors running into 5,431km got the highest five-star safety rating for vehicle occupants. Another 245km got a four-star rating. The study gave three stars to about 55% of the two highway networks, which is “good” so far as safety of occupants is concerned.

Full Article : https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/...w/65835209.cms

[vigsom]

Most highway motorists face the following issues:

a)Wrong side driving/riding

b)Trucks parked on the road shoulder

c) Trucks stuck on the slow lane of the highway(the left most, and on the bridges most of the time)

a), b) and c) make it quite risky to take the left most lane, especially on curves and at merging points.

Overtaking via the left lane is extremely dangerous.

d)Slow trucks in all 3 lanes making drivers of vehicles behind getting impatient and thus attempting risky manoeuvres.

e) maniacs in cars - I spot them on the IRVM and let them pass ASAP.

It finally boils down to keeping a cool head and navigating safely.

I have learnt a lot of best driving practices from State Transport Corporation drivers(SETC in TN in particular), from drivers with SRM and KPN, again in TN, plus from good drivers in the US and UAE.