WHAT ROAD ACCIDENTS TELL US ABOUT INDIA
India's failure to contain road accidents is costing it about 2-3% of per capita growth in income. EPISODE #13
Hi Everyone,
A very happy Monday to you.
The surge in covid-19 cases witnessed last week, particularly in Maharashtra, is cause for concern. The big worry is whether there is a second wave in the making. It could potentially undo all the gains achieved over the last one year. At the same time, it is considerable cause for comfort that the vaccination drive is on the upswing; though some states are inexplicably playing laggard. In my personal circle there is a visible uptick in people opting for the vaccine; and the good news is that nobody is reporting any reactions. Fingers crossed.
Not sure if it is just me. Anecdotally I am witnessing a greater tendency of people in South Delhi violating traffic laws—not so much about jumping lights (as they fear the alert cameras), but more in terms of wrong side driving—which the cameras inexplicably seem to ignore. An unnecessary self-goal. Just a matter of time before tragedy strikes. Thought this may be a good moment to explore the phenomenon of road accidents in India and how its consequences can no longer be ignored.
Thank you Rahul Sharma for the stunning collage.
Once you read this post, please, please do drop me an email with your thoughts or ping me on twitter at @capitalcalculus. It is key to growing this newsletter community. A big shout out to Vandana B, Premasundaran, Gautam, Yugainder, Vandana C, Krishan, Shreekant, Vijay K, Rajit, Balesh and Nimesh. The topic seems to have struck a chord with a lot of readers creating an interesting conversation around the transforming polity of India. And with a key election cycle in play, guess we are not done discussing politics. Would be nice if more of you joined the conversation. And, many thanks to readers who hit the like button 😊.
If you are not already a subscriber, please do sign up and spread the word.
Read on
ROAD ACCIDENTS AND INDIA
Little under a fortnight ago the World Bank released a new study on road accidents. The information it shared was startling. Taken together with similar studies, the revelations hold more than just a mirror to India’s driving habits and their consequences.
For one, the World Bank study informs us that India is the fatality capital of the world. An unsettling thought indeed. Citing figures furnished by the union ministry for Surface Transport the report revealed that while India accounts for only 1% of the world vehicle population its share in crash related deaths is a staggering 11%!
But wait most of us were already aware of this. But what we all didn’t know is that how this ties in with the class differences that dominate India: Urban vs Rural and Rich vs Poor. Essentially how built-in structural fault lines magnify the impact of the accident burden as you go down the ladder of economic power. It empirically confirms what we knew intuitively.
This is precisely what the Bank’s research based on a survey of the states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra—who between them account for one in three road accident deaths in the country—reveals. Undoubtedly they are very uncomfortable findings:
The incidence of fatality post-crash is higher among victims from low income households
Almost one in two rural households reported an accident fatality; while in urban areas the proportion was little over one in ten.
Within households, women bore the brunt of caregiving activities post-crash, doubling the burden of labour and mental load and diminishing prospects of returning to work.
Only a fifth of the truck drivers had medical insurance; while only two out of five had life insurance cover.
Very clearly the brunt of an accident or fatality is shared unequally. The bottom of the pyramid is the worst off. At the same time it begets a very obvious question: are rural fatalities higher because the expressways straddle rural India? Or is it something else? Or is it actually several factors playing out together?
The Fault Line
The causes of road crashes are both frightening and frustrating—because some of them, like wrong side driving, can be easily fixed by road users themselves; and yet they don’t.
It will help keeping in mind—everyone who drives will concur—that driving involves multi-tasking (not the unfortunate practice of taking phone calls on your mobile while driving) and hence far more complex a task than we give credit for. And often the reaction time is a split second.
In the Indian context this task is magnified given that a driver has to simultaneously deal with far more variables. Not only do our roads have a variety of motorized and non-motorized vehicles (like bullock carts and rickshaws), cyclists, pedestrians, including unassisted children and senior citizens, and of course expecting the unexpected when adherence to traffic rules is more of an exception. The consequences of this fault line is frightening.
According to the union transport ministry wrong-side driving on roads claimed 9,200 lives in 2019. Recently one of the readers of this newsletter had shared the tragic story of a car driver who met with a crash (which has left the person in a coma) trying to save a person driving on the wrong side on an expressway. It is for a reason that this is the second biggest cause for road accident deaths on the national highways.
A study undertaken jointly by the Centre for Scientific and Industrial Research and the Central Road Research Institute, concludes that “inappropriate driving behaviour” is the major cause for road crashes: Two out of three accidents are caused because of the fault of road users!
The same report quotes another study of road users in Hyderabad which found over 50% drove their vehicle in the direction opposite to the flow of traffic; and that 49% of the drivers did not have a rear view mirror installed on their vehicle.
Unbelievably, in some road accidents, both the perpetrator and the victim belong to the family of road users. Indeed, food for thought.
The way forward
Is there a way out? Frankly, India does not have an option. It has to figure a way out. In the short run the strategy has to play strong defence and in the long run look to force a radical behavioural makeover.
If the loss of human life or the injuries don’t pose a wake-up call, then pay heed to the economic cost. The same World Bank study estimates the cost of road traffic injuries in 2016 to be nearly Rs13 trillion; and imagine the impact of these medical bills on the family budget.
“Not only does it lead to untold and unaccounted for suffering and loss for victims and their families, but also, it drains the GDP of countries by claiming millions of economically productive young lives,” the study said.
The solution clearly has to be holistic, especially since it has to address the structural flaws. Putting up sign boards—they already exist—may be a necessary but not a sufficient condition to mitigate road crashes. Teaching the science and discipline of road use has to begin early, probably at the school level; it is also a good means of drilling in the imperatives of adhering to a rules-based regime on impressionable minds.
Because the odds of them growing up as adults respecting the rule of law just became that much better.
Recommended reading
Not to sound depressing, but increasingly I find myself thinking about death. Not sure if it is because of the health threat of the covid-19 pandemic or the fact that I have in the recent past lost several acquaintances.
By a bizarre coincidence I stumbled upon this piece in the New Yorker. It set me thinking about what happens to our possessions (you will be surprised at the amount of stuff we amass in just a year, forget about a life time) after us. Is it really fair to leave it others to clear up afterwards? Check out two excerpts from the article.
“Holding hands in the parking lot, Tavia and I swore a quiet oath: we would not do this to anyone. We would not leave the contents of our lives for someone else to sort through, because who would that mythical sorter be, anyway? My stepchildren? Her niece? Neither of us had children of our own. Could we assume that our husbands would make order out of what we left behind? According to the actuarial tables, we would outlive them.”
“This was the practice: I was starting to get rid of my possessions, at least the useless ones, because possessions stood between me and death. They didn’t protect me from death, but they created a barrier in my understanding, like layers of bubble wrap, so that instead of thinking about what was coming and the beauty that was here now I was thinking about the piles of shiny trinkets I’d accumulated. I had begun the journey of digging out.”
Food for thought? If yes, do read.
Till we meet again next week. Stay safe.
One final thought is - can we segregate traffic - through dedicated lanes - Vietnam, Malaysia, China and Indonesia all have some form of segregation for motorcycles considering they are a big part of their vehicles - Why aren't we thinking along these lines? Our 2-W population is huge and would doubtless increase faster than car ownership - indeed every rural household may soon have one and so we should be considering this - as about 37% of all fatalities are of 2-W riders.
Technology can help - I see that traffic in Hyderabad stopping before the stopline now thanks to CCTV, but the cost of this on all our highways would be enormous. Simpler solutions to nudge right behavior can be tried - for instance - 2-W and cars all try to avoid the speed humps by going around - the simple design change here would be to extend the speed hump all the way into the shoulder and beyond - so people are forced to go over and so comply with the physical measure. Similarly, the traffic light before the zebra at a junction would force users to stop before it so they can see the traffic light, enabling free movement for people on the zebra.
Helmet wearing can be fostered by tying in the helmet with the ignition - an added benefit may be the security of the 2-W in case the key is left in the ignition - if the user has the helmet in possession - here it is important to focus on other methods to motivate users rather than just the stick - security of the vehicle may generate safety as a byproduct - but that's the outcome we want - irrespective of how it comes.
Finally, again the problem has to be tackled systematically - one broader issue is migration to cities - even the Minister has acknowledged how we reduce this (not through the Chinese way) - as this has huge impacts - we need to create social and econ infrastructure that will enable people to work where they are and limit migration. Take a city like Mumbai - let's say it has 1000 migrants each day - these would take up the footpaths the first day to live and work. So footpaths are encroached affecting pedestrians who will start walking on the carriageway - with related safety risks. Soon, these people will buy a bicycle and a motorcycle - and all these will be on the same road (again with increased safety risks) which hasn't expanded to accommodate all of them. In the meantime, another batch of migrants has come in and the cycle continues - no wonder our cities are choked. The solution here is not expanding the road - one can never build enough out of this - several US interstates and Chinese Outer ring roads around Beijing are cases in point. The best solution is to make opportunities available in towns and villages on the periphery to limit migration.
A second level would be to foster building of public transport. The third level is what we are looking at - given that the first two aren't happening in a big way - and it is like applying bandages to a hemorrhage.