In the year 2015, around 2,200 delegates adopted the ‘Brasilia Declaration on Road Safety,’ with India being one of the supporters of the idea. Following this, a group of ministers met for the first time in 2016 and revealed the government’s agenda to reduce the number of road accidents and fatalities by 50% by 2020. The idea, as revealed by this 2018 report by Times of India, seems to be just an imagination for the country right now. The report depicts how the changes in the number of accidents and the number of fatalities for the past two years are quite low as compared to the required figures.
According to the data released by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH), Government of India in its annual reports, it can be seen that the number of road accidents has been fairly constant with 4,89,400 accidents in 2014 to 4,64,910 in 2017. A similar trend has been seen with the number of fatalities which has risen from 1,39,671 in 2014 to 1,47,913 in 2017, seeing a jump of almost 6%. In an attempt to gauge the extent of road safety and its impacts on lives in my city, I interviewed a few people who relied on better traffic laws for their occupation the entire day. These people, whom we see around regularly, talked about the conditions of streets that they usually travel on and the kind of facilities provided by the authorities. They ranged from street hawkers to auto-rickshaw drivers, to even a few policemen with each of them providing a fresher perspective into the issue.
Have Damaged Roads Been Bettered?
Kesh Lal, a paint contractor who depends extensively on road travel throughout the day, explained how there was a lack of traffic forces in a few crucial areas. He said that it was not uncommon for him to encounter delays in his work because of being stuck in a jam. On being asked about his experiences with damaged roads, he told me how the condition of the streets had improved manifold, especially in areas that had been breeding grounds for budding markets.
As I inquired about his experiences with road accidents, he explained to me that he had seen a very low number of fatal accidents in his time here. Although he had not been in a major accident himself, he explained how the presence of traffic caused a ruckus for the victims too. He described his own episode of being stuck in a traffic jam along with an ambulance which carried the survivors of a motorcycle crash, hence signalling the effects of the bottleneck.
Surat Pal Singh, a dry-fruit vendor, who employed a cycle rickshaw to navigate his products, said that he had to stay on the roads for more than 15 hours every day. He talked of a few rural areas, which were present on the outskirts of localities like Sunet and Dhaka colony, and how they were in dire need of an upgrade in terms of road maintenance. He said that the part of his route that went through posh colonies of the city had seen a major improvement in that matter.
Surat explained how he encountered delays of more than an hour due to traffic jams and how this caused a problem to his sales throughout the day. He felt that the deployment of law facilities was up to the mark, but he associated the jam-packed sessions with irresponsible parking techniques of motorcycle and car owners. On being asked about his means of transport and its advantages over a more automated form of stall, he clarified that although his stall costs lesser, it would be easy to navigate the streets with the help of a motor-operated means.
Is Police Intervention Efficient?
On talking to the owners of a fast food stall that is posted at one of the most crowded intersections in the city, I was made aware of how the police forces engaged in frequent barrier checks in the area. They told me that the streets used to lack on maintenance, but had recently been repaired after multiple requests by all the stalls and stores from the area. The intersection, which surrounds one of the foremost primary schools in the city, has seen a series of accidents for the past few years. The owners of the stall described how even with a presence of a ‘School Ahead’ sign, most of the drivers tend to ignore the speed limit and cause a row as they come into the main street.
The same sentiment was reflected in my conversation with a couple of police officers who explained the huge role that public negligence played in problems of road accidents and fatalities. They explained that people found it normal to park their cars in inappropriate ways, stating they had business elsewhere for small durations, in turn causing a nuisance for the traffic officers as well as other vehicles.
Manoj Kumar, an auto-rickshaw driver also said that the police were usually regular with their work, with officers deployed at traffic signals. He explained that owing to a normal flow of traffic, he had been able to reduce his travel time significantly.
Kanhai, another street hawker, who traverses a route of around 50 km every day, described how there was a constant presence of traffic in a few areas throughout the city. He said that although one could see traffic forces deployed at those places, it was not always helpful, as the present officers intervened only in cases of extreme congestion. He told me how he had found himself stuck in such situations for almost two hours at a time. In response to a question on the benefits of automation, he echoed Surat Pal Singh’s response.
Vijender Singh, a person with a disability who relied on alms, used a manually operated vehicle to navigate throughout the city. Hailing from the area of Shimlapuri, he described how the locality had seen a complete makeover from being an open garbage dump to having well-maintained roads in the last decade or so. On being asked about the magnitude of traffic encountered by him, he told me how he faced substantial blockage in only 3-4 areas across his route.
He also said that in the presence of working traffic signals, the absence of a police officer was hardly felt. But, in cases of extreme gridlocks, the attendance of an official was highly irregular. Although he commended the condition of roads and the improvement they had seen, he felt that it was extremely necessary for authorities to take steps towards making it easier for people with disabilities to travel on the roads. Since people, who do not have a shot at employment opportunities, have to resort to begging, the streets must be safer for them too.
Conclusion
Having read these accounts, it is easy to derive the relationship between the situation of road safety and the livelihood of a major chunk of our population. Successive governments in Punjab have looked at the problem of road safety over the years, and with appropriate measures, the state saw an almost 16% decline in the number of road fatalities in 2017. According to the MoRTH data, Ludhiana, the most populated city in Punjab, ranked 22 among the million-plus cities of the country in 2017.
Out of all the states and union territories, although Punjab ranked 18 in terms of the total number of accidents and 14 in terms of the total number of fatal accidents in 2017, this trend is invisible in bigger cities where various factors have played an important role in improving the situation of road safety. From the above descriptions, these factors can be seen ranging from better road conditions to increased public awareness, to better deployment of police officers at crucial areas throughout the city.