Every day, when I wake up, I put on my socks and sports shoes and go for a run. I live in a residential colony near the North Campus of Delhi University and I love going for a run. I get to breathe in fresh air in the morning and watch the cute dog that one of the residents takes out for a walk at the same time.
Or it would have been so, if it were true. The reality is far from this. Because going for a run in a simple residential colony in Delhi is more strenuous on one’s brain and senses rather than their legs.
Whenever road safety is discussed in India, images of traffic lights, drunk drivers, rash drivers, heavy traffic, etc. pop up in our minds. In this chaos, one aspect is often overlooked and that is road safety in residential areas.
One is often disillusioned to believe that these areas are safer considering the fact that they have more pedestrians and less actual traffic. Right?
Wrong.
Why Is Road Safety In Residential Areas Important?
The main reason we need to concern ourselves with road safety in residential areas is because for one, it is lacking in that field, and two, because of the nature of the area.
Roads in colonies and markets are hardly ever considered roads as they are mostly used by pedestrians, which for drivers means no rules, no traffic lights and no fellow vehicles to slow their speed. Drivers often take a detour through these streets to avoid the traffic of the main roads, and on finding an empty road, (because when people are in a car, they hardly ever see cyclists or pedestrians) they speed up and save their precious time by zipping through main roads. There is no consideration for speed or rules or even following something as basic as keeping to one’s left. Because, pure and simple, there is no one to check or police the area. Even we rarely think of colonies and markets when we think of road safety.
What makes the situation worse is these roads are ventured on not only by pedestrians, but the more vulnerable kind of pedestrians – kids play and ride cycles on such tracks, senior citizens walk and visit nearby stores, walkers take their out pets for a stroll, and so on. Such places give people a false sense of safety making them fairly less alert of the dangers of accident, while the drivers get a sense of misplaced freedom.
On the other hand, markets also have a similar problem where people consider the entire street as a parking lot. This forces the walkers to leave the safety of the sidewalk, if there is any, and walk around the parked cars, thus exposing themselves to speeding vehicles.
Sidewalks are also a huge concern. Even if the area does have a pavement, they do not get the same attention as the road itself. This results in ill-maintained pavements, with chunks of bricks missing or broken, making people susceptible to injuries.
All this leads to inappropriate and mixed functions roads, which results in confusion as there are no clear distinctions and demarcations for the areas meant for pedestrians, vendors, bikes, or cars. Add to this the lack of rules and a vulnerable crowd, you have the recipe for a disaster.
What Can Be Done?
The solutions to these problems are not very far-fetched. They are, as a matter of fact, simple and basic. The first step is to acknowledge the need to consider residential areas under the domain of road safety. Once this is done, the following steps can be taken to ensure safety on roads in colonies and market places.
1) Speed Limits: Studies show that if the collision speed is less than 30km/h, then there are fewer chances of severe injuries. Controlling speed limits has proven successful in many countries, including Japan, Switzerland, Sweden and Norway.
2) Strategic Planning: A strategic road design can also help in ensuring safer roads. Properly placed speed breakers and CCTV cameras are some of the most common methods used by various countries like UAE, Great Britain, and many more. India still lacks such a consistent system of policing.
3) Infrastructure: By making separate areas for vendors and car parking and separate lanes for cyclists, the problem of burdening the road with incompatible functions can be solved as distinctions would be clearer, thus reducing chaos and confusion.
4) Closing Off Traffic: Closing off traffic from certain areas during particular times of the day can also help reduce accidents (for example the time of day when schools and colleges end), thereby avoiding an out pour of students on roads.
It is not a really problematic solution if one considers the fact that such a thing is done more often than not to allow the vehicles of the VIPs or politicians to pass through traffic unhindered. It should not be too much to ask to do the same for others.
5) Maintenance: It is the most basic and yet the most crucial point. And this does not apply to just the maintenance of road infrastructure, but the maintenance of rules is also important. This must be done on the part of the citizen as well as authorities. For example, citizens should not break rules, and those regulating must not ask for bribes.
The rules need to be executed systematically and without fail. They should be reiterated to ensure that people do not take traffic rules, or any policy for granted. After all, an ill-executed policy is as good as non-existent. Remember the odd-even policy?
6) Research: Every country, region and area has its own set of problems. One solution cannot apply to all regions and this is why research is important. Countries like Japan and Singapore do surveys, understand their terrain, study the behavior of their people and the patterns in the accidents, and then they come up with policies and methods to solve the problems of traffic and road accidents. Why is the research sector in our country not considering this?
Our country, on the other hand, greatly lacks in this area, despite having diversity in terrain and road behaviour! It is ironic that we should lag behind while the whole world hires extremely qualified professionals to do this crucial job.