Every four minutes there is a life lost on the Indian roads.
The number accumulates to more than 16 deaths every hour and about 1, 47,000 fatalities every year. An additional figure of about 6 lakh people who suffer injuries in these accidents is added to the list.
These are not mere statistics. Instead the data reflects how dangerously we commute on roads.
Research reveals that human error accounts for more than 70 per cent road accidents. Adrenaline rush – that drivers fail to contain – leads to misjudgment and ultimately claims precious lives on roads.
A perusal of road accidents indicates that over speeding, drunken driving, distractions to driver, red light jumping, disregard to putting on safety gears including seat belts and helmets, non-adherence to lane driving and overtaking in a wrong manner. Various national and international researchers have found these as most common behavior of vehicle drivers, which leads to accidents.
Over Speeding:
Over speeding multiplies the risk of accidents and severity of injuries. Over speeding drivers do not realize that vehicles plying at a higher speed require a longer distance to stop. A speeding vehicle also faces a higher impact in an event of crash while the ability of driver also diminishes significantly at faster speeds.
Drunken Driving:
It is scientifically proven that alcohol reduces concentration and adversely impacts reaction time of individuals. It hampers vision, dampens fear and incite humans to take risks. With a successive increase of 0.05 blood alcohol concentration, the risk of a road accident doubles.
Distraction to Driver:
The use of mobile phone while driving is responsible for many fatal crashes. Conversation over phone while being behind the wheel takes a major part of the brain and lesser portion of brain is dedicated to controlling the vehicle. Talking on phone while driving hampers ability to judge and react.
Some other distractions on road include adjusting mirrors, adjusting music system, banners and billboards.
Red Light jumping:
Jumping red lights leads to risk of accident endangers the safety of other road commuters. Often, the driver jumping the red light accelerates the vehicle which hampers his ability to notice or judge the behavior of traffic.
Avoiding Safety Gears like seat belts and helmets:
Use of seat belt in four-wheeler is now mandatory and not wearing seat belt invites penalty, same in the case of helmets for two wheeler drivers. Wearing seat belts and helmet has been brought under law after proven studies that these two things reduce the severity of injury during accidents. Wearing seat belts and helmets doubles the chances of survival in a serious accident. Safety Gears keep you intact and safe in case of accidents. Two wheeler deaths have been drastically reduced after use of helmet has been made mandatory. One should use safety gears of prescribed standard and tie them properly for optimum safety.
While the Government has initiated a strategy based on 4 `E’s – Education, Engineering, Enforcement, Emergency care, most of the accidents could be averted if the drivers resort to follow speed limits, avoid distractions, stay away from alcohol while behind the wheels and adhere to the traffic norms.
An initiative to make roads safer needs to take off. Why can’t we be instrumental to start the change?