Creation of Awareness About Road Accidents

Roads are the key element to the development of a country’s economy. It constitutes the basic infrastructure that accelerates the developmental process by providing connectivity and also by facilitating the routes to trade and commerce. Its vitality is further manifested in terms of its role in inter modal transport development establishing links with airports, railway stations and ports. In addition, roads promote national integration, which is particularly important in a country like India, where it is the second most important mode of transport, covering every nook and corner of the country where even railway cannot cater. Since India’s independence in 1947, there has been a tremendous increase in the road network, but this increase failed to keep pace with the growth of road traffic.

While India’s network grew at an annual rate of 4% since 1951, the number of vehicles plying on road increased at the rate of 11%. Hence despite their importance to the national economy and integration, the gross inadequacy of the Indian road network is starkly characterised in terms of its inability to handle high traffic density at many key locations and poor riding quality, thereby leading to large scale road accidents in the country. The dictionary meaning of accident stand as the undesirable and unfortunate happening, often driven by unintentional reasons, resulting in harm, injury, damage or loss. The World Health Organization (WHO) defines road traffic crash as "a collision or incident that may or may not lead to injury, occurring on a public road and involving at least one moving vehicle".

A traffic accident can be described as the failure of the entire system involving road, vehicle and the driver to perform one or more operations necessary for completing a trip without any injury or loss. Involvement of the roads in the accidents are specifically critical on account of the insufficient maintenance of the road network and lack of efficient and systematic enforcement of the required rules and regulations (Yannis, 2007). It has become a common cliché that accidents are not natural but are caused’ in the area of traffic safety.

So if these accidents are caused, then surely the causal factors could be identified and approximate remedial measures can be developed and implemented to the possible extent (Srinivas Rao et al 2005)Road accidents constitute one of the major causes of death, injury and disability in both the developing and the developed countries. Such injury is the leading cause of burden and disease among the males (WHO 1999). Road accidents specifically deter civic health and the progress of the developing countries in many different arena, as these deaths are often characterised as neglected public health problems in the third world countries. In addition to that, trauma from these accidents are frequent and have varying impacts to victims from different age groups. Such injuries and deaths can cause the entire track of an individual’s life to change.

While analysing road traffic injuries Martha Hijar et al (2004) strongly states that it is important not to forget that the public health problem has clear and profound repercussions in daily life as a cause of death and also generate consequences and disabilities, since in most cases, the victims do not die, but are impaired and need to adapt the changes in rules in their daily activities during several weeks or months, and in some cases permanently as a consequence of the accident. These accidents are in no way normal and largely owe their occurrences to the inefficient and inadequate safety measures, as evident from the fluctuating numbers of road accidents and road accident related deaths in most of the prominent metropolitan cities of India like Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai almost every alternate year. As a result, road safety has occupied a prominent position among the list of present day growing concerns. The impact of the road accidents on the developing countries than that of the developed countries is further illustrated by the fact that as per the World Health Organization, 75% of the deaths resulted from traffic accidents occur in the developing countries although they own only 32% of the motor vehicles in the world. The annual fatality per 10,000 vehicles ranges from 20 to 200 in low and medium income countries, the range for developed countries varies from 1.5 to 5.

The estimated global economic cost of traffic accidents is $518 billion per year. The share of the developing countries is $100 billion which accounts for 1 to 3% of their gross national product (Peden et al 2004). While the situation is improving for many of the developed as well as developing countries, India on the other hand seems to be trapped in a contrary scenario. Road accidental fatalities doubled in a span of just 16 years, from 56,000 in 1992 to 1,14,600 in 2007. In comparison to 1997, fatalities and injuries in 2007 are higher by 40,000 and 1,55,000, respectively. (Singh 2009) India is estimated to have the second highest number of road accidents in a year, according the World Road Statistics 2010 data.

During 2010, there were 4,97,686 road accidents which resulted in the deaths of 1,42,483 persons and injured 3,55,203 persons in the country. In a dubious distinction, India is the only country in the world to face more than 13 fatalities and 53 injuries every hour as a consequence of road accidents (Singh 2009). 2013 was another remarkable year with more than 1,37,000 road accident related deaths in its record, surpassing the total number of killed people in all our wars. There is one death in every 4 minutes due to road accidents in the country. (National Crime Records Bureau, 2013).

Following the release of the Ministry’s annual publication ‘Road Accidents in India-2016, it has been found that road accidents in the country may have decreased by around 4.1% during 2016, with the year seeing 4,80,652 road accidents as against 5,01,423 in 2015 but fatalities resulting from these accidents have risen by about 3.2% during the same period. In the year 2016, 13 States namely Tamil Nadu, MP, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Kerala, UP, AP, Rajasthan, Telangana, Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, West Bengal and Haryana comprised for 86 per cent of the total road accidents in the country. Similarly, 13 States such as UP, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Rajasthan, MP, AP, Gujarat, Telangana, West Bengal, Punjab, Haryana and Bihar contribute 84 per cent in the total persons killed due to road accidents during 2016.

Talking about the Million Plus Cities, it can be said that the fifty Million-Plus Cities in the country accounted for 18.7 per cent in total road accidents in the, 11.8 per cent in the killing of persons involved in road accidents and 16.7 per cent in total number of injured persons in road accidents. Accident severity for the combined 50 Million Cities was estimated to be19.8 in 2016 as against 14.9 per cent in 2015. All these statistics can be largely attributed to the condition of the urban transport facilities, which in most of the Indian cities are inadequate and deteriorating over the years. Since the development of public transport system has not kept pace with the traffic demand both in terms of quality and quantity, the use of the various modes such as personalised transport, mainly 2 wheelers and 3 wheelers and intermediate public transport has grown and is growing at a rapid speed.

Roads and footpaths of today are heavily encroached by parked vehicles, hawkers and roadside business putting the pedestrians’ life at a great risk. Besides, it is worthy of note that the road surface in most of the Indian cities is substandard. In addition, missing lane markings, traffic signs, inappropriate constructions and intersections with highly required geometric corrections are also responsible for increased road accidents in India. In 2015, with an approximate annual number of 10,000 vehicular accidents and 5,500 deaths due to these accidents, West Bengal ranks 4th with 52% fatality rate as against the national fatality rate of 28% and is ranked among the top 13 accident prone states in the country. Kolkata being one of the most predominant urban centres of the state and a primate city in Eastern India, with a population of 44,86,679 (as per 2011 census) does not lag far behind in terms of road accidents and inadequate road safety measures.

As the economy of this area is entirely dependent on the industrial and service sector with an ever increasing population in informal sector mainly in the form of rickshaw pullers, it is well known that this type of economy relies on quicker means of transport, thus vehicle pressure on the road is huge, this consequently increases the occurrences of accidents and is further aggravated by the fact that only 7% of the city’s land area is covered by transportation. The intra city journeys within the city are generally nightmares to the inhabitants and the daily commuters. As per National Crime Records Bureau of the year 2014, the city has recorded the highest percentage increase in road accidents among all the major cities in India with its contribution to a total of 4789 accidents, a phenomenal jump of 13.9% as compared to 2013. Out of this 431 people lost their lives on the city roads while 4832 were left injured. The total flow in the Kolkata Metropolitan Area as per the annual review of the Kolkata Traffic Police for the year 2014-15 was found to be 1,432,362 vehicles. The road network is very much congested with a total length of 4000 km spanned in an area of 207 sq.km.

A total of 412 fatal and 1357 serious injury cases were reported in 2015. A number of entry points like Dunlop, Howrah Bridge, Sealdah, Khidderpore, Ultadanga etc. can be identified easily owing to their large number of daily outflow and inflow. Hence looking at the prevailing scenario and condition of accident around the world this sudden occurrence can appropriately be termed as ‘Social hazard" (Paul et al 2013). Accidents are caused by a combination of different factors: even if one factor is removed, the number of accidents is possible to be reduced to a certain level. Personal factors like health of a person, lack of counteraction on the part of drivers as well as the other vehicles and the public, not following the road rules etc., are responsible for accidents (Keay and Simmonds 2006; Kaysi and Abbany 2007; Haileyesus et al 2007).

Material factors like unsafe road conditions, irrational behaviour and acts of the road users, failure of vehicles, poor maintenance etc., are also responsible for accidents. In a congested city like Kolkata, pedestrians constitute the most vulnerable group to accidents. Even the zebra crossings pose sufficient danger to them considering the actions of the motorists. This is further aggravated by the large number of unregistered auto vehicles in the city. Out of 53 mega cities, Kolkata (214 deaths) followed by Chennai (206 deaths) have reported maximum cases of road accidents at pedestrian crossing. Thus this increasing vulnerability of the pedestrians can be largely attributed to the conflicts and misinterpreted communication between the pedestrians and vehicle drivers. The narrow lanes the city coupled with large residential density adds to more of such problems.

The occasional meetings and rallies which Kolkata’s roads boast of cannot be ignored as well while speaking of the improper road management and resultant number of accidents. Therefore, the excessive increase in road accidents in Kolkata especially in the recent times can be mainly due to the large scale growth of motor vehicles, which in turn grew to cater the demand of the increased population and also due to the change in economic and social behaviour of the people. So, the entire structure of accident incidence is a multifarious observable fact. Thus it is imperative to address the safety measures. The safety movement in India was started in Bombay in 1922, which in due course became the first safety association of India. The national safety council was started in 1966 as per the industrial safety, organized by Management of Transport Corporation and Trade Union (Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation Manuel).

The vitality of safety measures is increasingly realised on account of the experience of the present day growing number of road accidental mishaps. The most important safety measures include adequate personal protection like wearing of helmet, seat belt etc., proper training of vehicle handling, education of safe driving and of course regular maintenance of vehicles. The government of West Bengal has been running "Safe Drive Safe life" campaign to create awareness about road safety among the inhabitants and the road users of the state. Decisions have been made to install speed guns, watch towers, CCTV cameras, beside separate lanes for buses and bikes. Green corridor has been constructed in Satragacchi and discussions are going on regarding the construction of clean corridors for emergency situations. Initiation of cancelling driving license on violating traffic rules for more than three times have also been made. But the how far these measures have been properly implemented with regularity, is a subject of concern.

Reports of increasing number of unregistered vehicles, handicapped installed CCTV cameras at major road junctions, presence of manual traffic signalling system, denial of access of the Green Corridor and above all the positive trend of rates of accident in the city further make the subject more evident. But these problems of adequate and irregular safety measures in the city is also due to the fact that there is substantial under-reporting as many accidents are settled privately. Presence of fewer data on accident reports at police station indicates the ignorant attitude towards accident reporting, which in turn is fuelled by the lack of standard accident-reporting format. However, a further detailed study of the accident scenario in the city followed by appropriate planning strategies to curb the situation can shed further light into the entire picture and enhance a better understanding of it.