India, has been seeing rapid increase in high speed vehicles on roads. Are Indian Vehicle drivers and the road infrastructure are fit enough to handle such high speeds and ensure safety of lives and limbs of road users ?
Almost 95 % of the Indian drivers are not trained or tested for ability even to drive a vehicle of 40 Kmph speed. Indian Driving license can be easily got even without visiting a RTO office & without being tested for competence to ride a vehicle. Indian Bribing mechanism is so well oiled through driving institutes and touts to secure driving licenses only paying few thousand rupees depending on the state or districts they are living in.
Even most of the metropolitan cities' roads are not designed for handling a speed of 60 Kmph. In this scenario, many internationally renowned bike & Car manufacturers are continuously launching high power capacity bikes and cars which are boasting speeds from 300 to 500 kmph.
India is the world capital for road accidents and deaths. Most of the cases of road accidents are due to gross negligence to road safety and carelessness.
Root cause is India, due to its over population, value for human lives and animal lives are quite low. Accidents and deaths are just treated as numbers. Accountability and responsibilities over fellow human beings' lives' are quite low.
Are Indians most undisciplined ? it is not exactly true. For example, in the strict cities like Singapore and Dubai, most of the drivers are of Indian origin and most of them obey road rules. So, while Indians are driving within the rules in other countries and why not in India ? Simple, value of a driving license is quite low and there is no training mechanism or system available practically to train the drivers and assess their skills. Driving simulators are available with certain private training institutes, the Government law enforcement agencies is not equipped to train and assess the skills of drivers. Government of India is spending millions of dollars for skill training for the industry needs but not spending enough on training and assessment of drivers.
India is aiming to become multi Trillion dollar economy but it is severely lagging behind in assessing the value of lives, productive hours and its bearing on economy due to road accidents.
See this interview of Minister of Highways where he himself is acknowledging the lack of awareness among general public. So how it will be prudent to hand over highly powerful motorbikes and high end cars at the hands of such irresponsible bunch of Population.
Responsible Citizens iYakkam, way back in 2008, sent a Public Interest Petition to re-examine all the drivers, train them in skill sets needed for safe driving and stop issuing new driving licences till the road accidents level reaches to the 10% of the then fatalities rate to the Madras High Court. It was promptly just forwarded to State Government to take action.
Recently Two youths, in their over enthusiasm recorded their last few seconds of over speeding their bike to 115 KMPH in Chennai City and banged their vehicle on another vehicle and two youngsters lost their valuable lives instantly. The video was widely shared in many TV channels and social media. The link of the video is here :
This is just one example of what is happening on Indian Roads. We are handing over powerful machines to the untrained, irresponsible, reckless drivers of India.
In our earlier blogs, we highlighted the gross negligence on the part of a well literate Doctor causing the death of Industrialist Mr. Cyrus Mistry in the recent past, due to over speeding.
As common citizens, in our day today life, will we give a knife or pistol or fire at the hands of a Toddler ???. in the same principle, how are we handing over high power machines in the hands of the untrained ?
Responsible Citizens iyakkam urges all the citizens to become responsible for their lives and that of others. Till we as a society does want to take responsibility for our lives, how can we expect our elected representatives to be responsible for our lives ? All our politicians and bureaucrats are also one among us and are just reflections of the society.
So, it is imperative, till we reach the 10% level of present day of statistics of road accidents and deaths, we need to ban the sales and manufacture of High speed machines on roads.
If India aspires to become a developed country, Lives Value Index , has to improve. Development cannot be measured by the speed of the bullet train, it should be measured based on the safety every living being can perceive on the road to live.
Already in many states in India, Liquor sales and drunken driving is rampant. Our society is just happy putting some statutory warnings for drinking alcohol and smoking cigarettes be contented of creating just awareness. Loss of Lives, limbs and livelihoods are happening every second in every part of this country.
Responsible Citizens should come forth to take more responsibility to take care of others lives as we need others to take care of us too. It is this cycle which makes the Responsible Society.
Responsible Citizens iYakkam Dec 2022
பொறுப்புள்ள குடிமக்கள் இயக்கம் டிசம்பர் 2022
Very topical article. Since India is on the top of the list for road accidents, we all must take it up very seriously and find a solution.
ReplyDelete