We need to understand that in terms of road safety India is roughly 20 years behind the West. Use of state-of-the art technology, and educating people on road safety could help it bridge this gap by 10 years, but this will require the cooperation of all the stakeholders, meaning industry, government and society. The government needs to ensure safer road infrastructure by scientifically designing roads to bring them on par with the best in the world while keeping Indian traffic conditions in mind.
The road transport ministry needs a data-based analysis to provide better infrastructure and cannot merely go by its intuition in such matters as unscientific designing of roads can add to the severity of injury and lead to fatal accidents.
It was for this reason that BOSCH and various automotive manufactures established accident research teams. Their reports have been sent to various stakeholders like policy-makers, regulation agencies, and OEM and automotive manufacturers and have helped in the making of evidence- based policies in the Indian scenario. For example, our Motorcycle ABS benefit estimation conducted in 2013 helped Indian policy- makers to consider a key legislation for Indian road safety based on data. This is why research in this field is extremely important. Technical scientific analysis is the answer to reducing many fatal accidents.
Besides improving safety of vulnerable road users by educating them on use of seat belts and helmets, more stress should be given on creating awareness among school children and college students on road safety. The government should establish a road safety information database to improve the quality of crash investigations and data collection and analysis. Also, it needs to implement Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) to establish a safe and efficient transport system. Lastly, it is important to stringently enforce safety laws and ensure their effective and uniform implementation.
The writer is technical architect, and accident research expert, advance vehicle safety functions, BOSCH.
