Global Context
According the Third Global Status Report on Road Safety 2018 of WHO (world Health Organization) The number of deaths on the world’s roads remains unacceptably high with 1.35 million people dying each year. One of the most heart-breaking statistics in this report is that road traffic injury is the leading cause of death for children aged between 5 and 29 years.
With the launch of the Sustainable Development Goals, road safety is receiving increased international attention, and is included in two of the 17 Goals of this new global agenda. SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOAL 3 & SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOAL 11.
India Context
India is a signatory to Brasilia Declaration in 2015 and is committed to reduce the number of road accidents and fatalities by 50 per cent by 2020. But this mission almost failed as no such sustainable activities has been implemented and the level of attention required has not been given to Road Safety it deserves.
The 3rd Global Ministerial Conference on Road Safety “Achieving Global Goals 2030” will take place on 19–20 February 2020 in Stockholm, Sweden. Hosted by the Government of Sweden and co-hosted by WHO. In the Ministerial Conference referred to popularly as the Brasilia declaration, which, inter-alia, resolved to halve the deaths and injuries from accidents by 2020 and to include this target in the 2030 agenda for sustainable development by the participating countries.
Road Safety is critical issue with more than 1 reported fatality every three minute in India. Thus there are many dimensions to the problem. Unfortunately India does not have as many running initiatives or organizations and we too, are not huge to address all issues. We thus have focused only on behavioral aspect of driving training, which nobody is currently into and we believe, this is the most critical area which if addressed properly has the potential to significantly bring down casualties.
First Road Traffic Death
The death of Bridget Driscoll (c. 1851 – 17 August 1896) was the first recorded case of a pedestrian killed in a collision with a motor car in the United Kingdom crossed Dolphin Terrace in the grounds of the Crystal Palace in London. Although the car's maximum speed was 8 miles per hour (13 km/h) it had been limited deliberately to 4 miles per hour (6.4 km/h).
The Harder Facts
India, however, ranks 1 in the number of road accident deaths across the 199 countries reported in the World Road Statistics, 2018 followed by China and US. As per the WHO Global Report on Road Safety 2018, India accounts for almost 11% of the accident-related deaths in the World.
Indian road network is the largest in the world with the total length of 64 lakh km.
Roads carry 87.4 percent of passenger and 65 percent of freight traffic.
India’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) share in road transport sector is 4.5 percent.
In India, there is a road accident every minute, whereas one fatal accident takes every three minutes.
The analysis of road accident data 2022 (MoRTH) reveals that about 1,263 accidents and 462 deaths take place every day on Indian roads, which further translates into 53 accidents and loss of 19 lives on an average, every hour, in our country.
Over speeding is a major killer, accounting for 71.2 percent of the persons killed in 2022.
About 66 percent of all persons killed in road accidents are in the 18-45 years’ age group during the year 2022.
two-wheelers with a share of 44.5% constitute the largest victim of road accident deaths which is 74,897 persons killed, increased by 7.9% in 2022 compared to 2021.
Pedestrians are the second highest victim of road accident death with a share of 19.5 percent in 2022. death of 32,825 pedestrians.