Why India’s roads are among the world’s deadliest

Every morning, Indian newspapers are filled with reports on road accidents – passenger buses that drown in the mountains, drivers drunk infantry, cars that collide with fixed trucks, and two wheels of large vehicles wandered.

These daily tragedies emphasize a silent crisis: In 2023 alone, more than 172,000 people lost their lives on Indian roads, with an average of 474 deaths every day or almost every three minutes.

Although the 2023 official crash report has not yet been launched, the Minister of Land Transport and High Roads have been martyred by two data. Draw a bleak picture At the road safety event in December.

Among the dead of that year, 10,000 children were. Accidents near schools and colleges formed 10,000 deaths, while 35,000 infantry lost their lives. Two wheels also endured deaths. Excessive speed appeared as a more unilateral cause.

It also demonstrated the absence of fatal basic safety precautions: 54,000 people died due to the lack of wearing helmets and 16,000 from the failure to wear seat belts.

Other main causes included excess loading, which led to 12,000 deaths, driving without a valid license, which was taken into account in 34,000 accidents. Driving on the wrong side also contributed to the deaths.

In 2021, 13 % of the accidents participated in drivers with the learner’s statement or the lack of a valid license. Many vehicles on the road are ancient and lost basic safety features such as safety belts – not to mention the airbags.

This environment increases the dangerous road due to the chaotic traffic mixture in India.

A confusing group of users mobilizing Indian roads. There are automatic vehicles such as cars, buses, and motorcycles that compete for the space with unsuccessful transportation such as bicycles, cycling and handcraft, animal carts, pedestrians and stray animals. The street vendors and infantry corridors exceed the sale of their goods, forcing the pedestrians on the crowded roads and increasing the traffic flow.

Despite the efforts made and investments, India roads are still among the most insecure roads in the world. Experts say this is a rooted crisis not only in infrastructure, but in human behavior, and systematic enforcement and negligence. The road breaks a large economic burden, India costs 3 % of the annual gross domestic product.

India has The second largest road network in the world6.6 meters (4.1 million miles), immediately after the United States. The national and state rapid roads together constitute about 5 % of the total network, while other methods – including the highly controlled highways – represent the rest. There is an estimated 350 million registered cars.

Jadkari told the road safety meeting that many road accidents occur because people lack respect and fear of law.

“There are several causes of accidents, but the largest is human behavior,” he said.

However, this is only part of the image. Only last month, Gadkari referred to Weak civil engineering practices – Design defective roads, low construction and weak management – along with insufficient signs and signs, as the main contributors to the average road accident rate.

“The most important perpetrators are civil engineers … even small things like road signs and the system of placing signs is very poor in the country,” he said.

Since 2019, I mentioned his ministry 59 major palaces in national highwaysIncluding caves, Gadkari told Parliament last month. Subordinate Select 13,795 “Black Spots” vulnerable to accidentsOnly 5,036 have undergone a long -term correction.

Over the years, road safety audits, conducted by the Transport and Prevention Research Center (TRPP) at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), revealed Delhi’s serious defects in the road infrastructure in India.

Take crashes. This aims to safely stop vehicles that move away from the road – without flipping them. But in many places, they do the opposite.

Despite the clear criteria for height, spacing and composition, reality on the ground often tells a different story: metal barriers in the wrong height, installed on concrete rules, or a weak position. These defects can cause a vehicle, especially a truck or bus, flipping instead of stopping safely.

“Unless it is installed just as it is specific, the collision barriers can cause more harm than it is useful,” Jetam Toyari, an IIT Delhi, told BBC.

Then there are long brokers – or road breaks, as they are called locally. On high -speed roads, brokers are supposed to gently separate traffic in the opposite direction. It should not be longer than 10 cm (3.9 inches), but, many of them appear.

When a high -speed vehicle frame strikes a vertical mediator, it generates heat, risks the explosion of tires, or even raises the car from the ground – which leads to dangerous extensions. Many brokers in India are not simply designed taking into account this threat.

The extension of a highway near the capital, Delhi, is a blatant example – cutting the road through dense settlements on both sides without safety measures to protect the population. The crowds of people stand unstable on the averages with high speed traffic.

Then there are high corridors. On many rural roads, frequent appearances left the tall main road from six to eight inches above the shoulder.

This sudden decrease can be deadly – especially if the driver deviates to avoid an obstacle. The two wheels are more likely, but even cars can ski, hint or heart. With the addition of each layer, the risk continues to rise, as experts say.

It is clear that the standards of road design in India are solid on paper – but it is poorly executed on the ground.

“One of the main problems is that non -compliance with safety standards attracts minimal penalties. Contracts often do not clarify these requirements clearly, and that payments are usually linked to the kilometers created – not adherence to safety rules.”

Minister Gadkari recently announced An ambitious plan to upgrade 25,000 km from the highways consisting of two lanes To four corridors. “This will help reduce road accidents significantly,” he said.

Experts like Kavi Bhalla from Chicago University are skeptical. Mr. Pahla, who worked on road safety in low and medium -income countries, says road designs in India often simulate Western models, ignoring unique traffic needs in the country and infrastructure.

He says: “There is no reason to believe that the expansion of roads will lead to a fewer traffic deaths. There is a lot of evidence that the promotion of roads in India leads to a high traffic speed, which is a killer for pedestrians, bicycle and motorcycles.”

“There is a major problem that the new roads in India simply copy the designs of the roads used in the United States and Europe, where the traffic environment varies greatly. India is trying to build the infrastructure of highways similar to the United States, but it does not invest in the American -style high -style safety research systems.”

To address the escalating road safety crisis, the government implements the “5es” strategy: road engineering, vehicle engineering, education, enforcement and emergency care, KK Kapila of the International Road Union says. (According to a report issued by the Law Committee in India, it was possible to provide an emergency medical care in timely 50 % of the deaths that it crashed on the roads.)

Mr. Kabila helps the federal government in the road safety plan. He says that seven major states were asked to determine the most extensions of accident display. After implementing the targeted interventions based on the 5S framework, these extensions became “safer” in its states, as he told me.

Most economists agree to build more methods is the key to India’s growth, but it must be sustainable and does not take priority for pedestrians and bikers.

“The price of development should not bear the poorest parts in society. The only way to learn how to build such methods is to try to carry out interventions, evaluate whether it has improved safety, if they did not help, modify and evaluate them again,” says Mr. Phala. If not, the roads will become smoother, cars faster – more people will die.

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