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It is India's highway to hellish behaviour.
Key points:
- One person dies on India's crowded and largely unregulated roads every four minutes
- More Indians have died in road accidents than in all the wars the country has fought
- With 11 million cars, Delhi is also one of the most polluted cities in the world
Last month, a 32-year-old business executive was killed while crossing the road in North Delhi's posh Civil Lines area, after being hit by a speeding car allegedly driven by a drunken teenager.
A week later, a car full of teenagers driving to their exams drove off a flyover, killing four instantly.
The gory stories continue — a teenager who was allegedly speeding also killed a homeless man and injured three others in April.
The national capital, Delhi, has the highest number of fatal accidents among all the cities across the country, with five deaths per day.
The share of fatal road accidents has increased phenomenally as Indian cities give more importance to high speed roads for vehicles than ensuring safe access for all.
Violations of the rules — signal jumps, drunken driving and speeding — are also rampant in the city and elsewhere in the big metros.
The city of about 20 million, which ranks among the world's top cities with polluted air according to the World Health Organisation, has almost 11 million vehicles.
"There is no regulation at all," said Manish Khungar, a former traffic police officer.
"And it is really scary to drive on the roads when nobody observes traffic rules."
"I have lost my son and wife in an accident which was caused by a driver who was completely drunk," said Manish Gupta, a trader in Indore, the capital of the central state of Madhya Pradesh.
"I have filed for compensation at the traffic tribunal but it takes time. But look at my personal loss."
Mixing cars, buses, tractors and ox carts
Bad behaviour on India's roads ranges from verbal abuse, gestures and horn-honking to aggressive driving, threats, assaults, and in extreme cases, murder.
With cars and buses grazing fenders with farm tractors, motorbikes and the occasional ox-driven cart, the problems only increase.
Unfortunately, India has the dubious distinction of registering the highest number of road fatalities in the world, despite the fact that its population is much smaller than its neighbour China and there are less vehicles on the roads than in the US.
The Government's own statistics speak volumes.
Every year around 500,000 accidents happen, leaving some 150,000 people dead. Every minute there is one road accident in the country, and every four minutes there is one death.
Inadequate laws, poor enforcement and a perception that accidents are inevitable have almost become a norm.
"More people have died in road accidents than in all the wars India has fought," said transport minister Nitin Gadhkari.
"That's not a good situation for me and my department, but I accept this sad situation."
India has witnessed five wars, with 10,253 casualties reported — that makes the number of deaths from road accidents 15 times higher than the number killed in all the wars India has fought since independence.
The simple reason for the rapid rise in accidents is that existing road infrastructure has not been able to keep up with the phenomenal increase in the volume of vehicles.
More importantly, the quality of road engineering in the country is not up to scratch, as proper highways and subways are required in order to reduce road accidents in India.
Topics: road, road-transport, world-politics, india
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