Awareness slogans: Are they meaningless?(Cover Story)

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

The State government seems to be putting too much stress on awareness campaigns, particularly slogans. But international experts feel that such isolated campaigns on road safety have negligible impact on the driving behaviour.

Studies show that the drivers are generally aware that bad driving behaviour like overspeeding is responsible for road accidents, but continue to do so until punitive action is taken. For example, a study by the National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences (NIMHANS) found that 99 per cent of the drivers who drink and drive agree that it (drinking and driving) is dangerous and 97 per cent were aware that it is prohibited under laws. This means that the government is spending most of its efforts and money to teach the drivers something they already know.

According to Global Road Safety Partnership (GRSP), road safety awareness campaigns in India are ineffective because they are not built on a scientific basis. Unless the campaigns serve as a prelude to well-coordinated punitive actions for bad driving behaviour, the slogans won’t be worth the papers they are written on. The fact that road accidents have increased despite repeated awareness campaigns, should make the government re-examine its strategies.

Drunken driving

With alcohol consumption catching up as part of popular culture, drunken driving is the single largest reason for road accidents. According to a WHO study, drunken driving is the cause for 44-67 per cent of fatal accidents. The State government’s data says 94-98 per cent of the road accidents are due to driver’s fault, for which drunken driving is a major contributor.

While experience of several countries shows that punitive action alone can deter drunken driving, the number of persons booked by the police in the State on this count is quite low. The Criminal Investigation Department review (2007) says: “Action has been initiated against only 6,557 persons for drunk and driving. Very easily 5 to 6 cases can be booked in each district. That means
booking of 2,000 cases per district is not difficult. With 36 units around 72,000 should be the target against drink driving.”

The situation has not changed much since the number of driving licences cancelled or suspended last year is just around 6,000.

“It is an open secret that every day, hundreds of thousands of men all over the State, park their vehicles in front of liquor bars for indulging in drinking. All of them drive away in these vehicles after drinking in the bars, but the police are merely looking from the sidelines,” says activist A Narayanan.

For some mysterious reason, the police believe that those coming to TASMAC shops in vehicles just buy liquor and go, he says, referring to an reply he received for an RTI application.

Road designing

The government has always believed that building better roads would bring down road accidents. But police records say that around 65-70 per cent of road accidents takes place on national and State highways, which are comparatively ‘better roads’.

Apparently, better roads do not automatically translate into safer roads. For example, the East Coast Road (ECR), which is well maintained, also sees one of largest number of accidents in the city.

Highlighting that newly improved roads need not necessarily be safe, R P Indoria, secretary general, Indian Road Congress, says poor designing of entry and exit points, medians, pedestrian pathways and crossing cause accidents on highways.

Agreeing that road accidents are increasing and urgent measures are required to address it, Transport Commissioner S Machendranathan says motorists have the tendency of overspeeding on better roads, which result in accidents. His department has suggested the installation of ‘speed governors’ to limit the speed of heavy vehicles. It was also in talks with the lorry owners’ associations to avoid long hours at the wheel for drivers.

Machendranathan stresses that roads should be better designed to make it safe. “Even the newly built OMR corridor has defects at 36 points, which can lead to accidents.”

Cine artists do their bit for road safety

Actors S Ve Sheker and Vaiyapuri distributed pamphlets containing messages on road safety to the general public and Metropolitan Transport Corporation drivers at Saidapet bus terminus on Tuesday.

According to K V Karthalingan, RTO (West), the programme was organised as part of the weeklong 21st annual road safety week celebrations conducted till January 7th. The pamphlets emphasise that drivers should not use cell phones while driving, wearing seat belts in case of a four-wheeler and using helmets both by riders and pillion riders.

The office of the Regional Transport Officer, Chennai (West), released the statistics on road accidents in Tamil Nadu during the last two years.



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Car insurance may come with accident cover

Road ministry mulls a fee of Rs 15 for such a cover.



The road transport ministry is planning to charge up to Rs 15 on every premium paid for insuring vehicles to fund a scheme to provide cashless hospital facility to victims of accidents on national highways.

“The ministry has suggested charging of Rs 15 as a premium for the vehicle insurance policy,” said a source in the ministry.

There are around 10 million registered vehicles in the country and the total insurance premium collected in 2008-09 was Rs 30,601 crore. The administrative heads of the districts would administer the fund, according to the proposal.

The government is working to provide cashless medical facility under the scheme as accident victims usually have to follow long procedures to get claims from insurance companies.

The government has constituted a committee to find ways to fund the scheme. The committee has members from four public sector insurance companies (National Insurance Companies, New India Assurance, Oriental Insurance and United India Insurance, the Insurance Regulatory Development Authority, the General Insurers (Public) Sector Association and Reliance General Insurance. The committee will submit its report by mid-January.

According to a World Health Organization report of a survey on road safety in 178 countries, constituting 98 per cent of world’s population, India leads in the number of deaths due to road accidents. India reported 105,000 traffic deaths in a year, compared with over 96,000 in China. Also, in India, an estimated two million people have disabilities
resulting from a road accident.

Over 1.2 million people die each year on world’s roads and 20-50 million suffer non-fatal injuries. In most regions of the world, this is increasing. Road traffic injuries are one of the top three causes of death of people between 5 years and 44 years.

Predictions are that by 2030, road traffic injuries will become the fifth leading cause of death worldwide.

Also, a lot of questions has been raised over the safety on the roads in India. Union Roads and Transport Minister Kamal Nath had announced that his ministry aimed of reduce accidents on the roads by half in the next three years.

The road transport and highways ministry had been able to utilise only 10 per cent of the fund allocated for providing road safety during the current financial year till November-end.

But in an embarrassment to the ministry, of the Rs 79 crore it got for safety in the current financial year, it had sued only Rs 7.6 crore till November. Also during the past two financial years, the ministry returned a part of its allocation, utilising Rs 54.9 crore of Rs 73 crore given in 2008-09 and Rs 42.9 crore of the Rs 52 crore allotted in 2007-08.

Primarily, safety of road users is the responsibility of the state governments, but the road transport ministry has schemes to make national highways safer. The ministry is supposed to run awareness campaigns for road safety, provide refresher training to heavy motor vehicle drivers, and provide ambulances and cranes on the highways for post accident care. It also does education and awareness campaigns.

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Compulsory `baby seats' in cars and covered trucks will finally touch down on India's highway network, with the Ministry of Road Transport and Highway

TWO key moves that could make Indian roads safer by notches are set to be implemented in 2010. Compulsory "baby eats" in cars and covered rucks will finally touch down n India's expanding highway network, with the Ministry of road Transport & Highways ready to notify the two new rules next year. At present, both proposals are awaiting the Law Ministry's nod.

Moving to radically change he way India's three million plus trucks ply, the government plans to make it mandatory for all trucks to have closed cargo sections with overs at the top and in the ear. The truck driver's cabin too will have to meet certain standards like adequate seating space and controlled cabin temperature, never exceeding 35 degrees Celsius.

The truck body code suggests green tinted windscreen, slide windows, blowers, ventilation points and lining the whole cabin area with heat insulating material for the driver's comfort. No part of the vehicle's fixed component should intrude into the driver's work area -- this will ensure minimal injury in case of accidents.

While the cargo section will be a closed unit, no mountable carrier will be permitted above it. Once the truck body code is notified, all new trucks manufactured in India will have to follow these rules and the existing ones will be given a year's time to upgrade. And when truck covers become a must, the ministry hopes to end the practice of overloading.

"The idea to is to make Indian roads safer and also make trucks safer vehicles.

Maximum road accidents are said to be caused by heavy goods vehicles, mostly trucks.

We have formulated a truck body code as per which all trucks will have standard dimensions and the cargo section will have to be a closed unit, all covered up, as is the norm in most developed countries. This will ensure goods don't spill on to the road in case of an accident.

The severity of accident will also be lessened. Truck specifications will be such that in the event of an accident, minimal damage is caused," said a senior Ministry official. That apart, India will finally take one more crucial step to road safety by mandating the installation of "Child Restraint Systems" (CRS) across all power drive four-wheelers from passenger cars to passenger buses. The idea is to create a safe and designated space for children in cars.

Across Europe and the US, besides other countries like Australia,CRS is mandatory in all vehicles. The planned implementation schedule is two years for new car models and three years for existing models.

The Central Motor Vehicle Rules-Technical Standing Committee has already formulated automotive industry standards in order to make CRS compulsory -- the next big step after making seat belts
compulsory in cars.

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Gurgaon traffic police to allot more funds for awareness drives

FOLLOWING the lead of their Delhi counterparts, the Gurgaon police have now approached their headquarters with the request that they be allowed to spend half the funds collected as fines or challans to raise awareness on traffic safety issues among road users.
The Gurgaon police collected a whopping Rs 4 crore in the form of fines from approximately 84,936 challans issued from January 1 till December 31 in 2009, records show.
"If we can allocate 50 per cent of this amount to teaching commuters -- through various campaigns at school and college levels -- that road safety is largely their own responsibility, it will help bring down the number of fatalities and injuries in road accidents," S S Deswal, Gurgaon Commissioner of Police, said.
As per data available, the number of people killed in road accidents was almost four to five times the number of those killed in other crimes like murders etc, he added.
"If we have more resources, we can carry out informative campaigns though the mass media like newspapers, television, posters and hoardings," the police chief said. He added the police will carry out a massive drive during the Road Safety Week starting from Friday.
"We will issue fewer challans and instead educate people," he said.
According to Deputy Commissioner of Police (Traffic) Satinder Gupta, there has been almost a 23 per cent reduction in the number of deaths or injuries caused by road accidents in all three zones of Gurgaon in 2009, compared to the previous year.
"Through data available, we have marked a couple of priority areas like the Expressway, DLF area and Sushant Lok, where we have carried out intense drives against speeding, drink driving and underage driving.
The results have been encouraging," DCP Gupta said.

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