Today, India is not only the fastest growing economy in the world but it also tops the list in the number of road accidents taking place every year. This is mainly due to the mounting population of all kinds of vehicles, right from two-wheelers to heavy commercial vehicles. In order to reduce the count of road accidents, the Government needs to come forward with safety measures including tightening the screws by implementing more stringent safety norms. These were the views of Prof. Dr. A. Veeraraghavan, Head – Transportation Engineering Division, I.I.T., Chennai, shared as part of the Er. R. Thillainayagam Endowment Memorial Lecture, jointly organized by the Institution of Highway Transport (India), Chennai, and the Institution of Traffic & Transportation Engineers (India) in Chennai recently.
According to Dr. Veeraraghavan, over 5 lakh accidents have taken place in India in 2016 of which Tamil Nadu topped the list despite being the first state to introduce a Road Accident Data Management System (RADMS). The country still faces several challenges to reduce road accidents, not just in Tamil Nadu but also across all states. Though statistics point at various reasons for the accidents, the major cause is driver fault which accounts for a staggering 84% of the total number of accidents, while the other factors include over-speeding, improper lane marking, etc. Apart from taking away precious lives, such road accidents also have an adverse impact on the country’s GDP.
While concluding his address, Dr. Veeraraghavan suggested several measures that could be adopted to bring down the number of road accidents, leaving the audience with plenty to think about.