A high level conference has been held in the Indian capital of Delhi to review the nation’s growing road safety challenges. With 100,000 fatalities and at least 2.2 million serious injuries each year India is losing 3% of its GDP to road crashes. The country is experiencing rapid growth in motorisation but suffers a fatality rate of 14 per 10,000 vehicles compared with less than two in the major industrialised countries. Speaking at the conference, organised by the Institute of Road Traffic Education (IRTE), the Lieutenant Governor of Delhi Tejendra Khana called for a coordinated effort to tackle the countries road safety crisis and called for the “engineering capabilities of various agencies need to be brought together to change the chaotic scenario”.
The IRTE conference on ’Road safety Investment in India’ also examined the recommendations of the Expert Report on Road Safety and Traffic Management, chaired by Mr S. Sundar, former Secretary of the ministry of Surface Transport and Fellow of the Energy and Resources Institute. The Sundar report prepared at the request of India’s Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, was published last year and recommends the established of a new agency, the National Road Safety & Traffic Management Board to co-ordinate a new national strategy for road traffic injury prevention. (See link below to download a copy of the Sundar report). The Indian Parliament is currently considering the adoption of the Sundar report’s key proposals.
The Delhi conference was supported by the Commission for Global Road Safety and included a presentation by the FIA Foundation’s Director General, David Ward. He highlighted the recommendations of the Commission’s Make Roads Safe report and stressed the opportunity in India to massively improve the inherent safety performance of its road infrastructure, combined with stronger enforcement and road user training. IRTE’s President Rohit Baluja drew attention to the crucial importance of capacity building in traffic engineering, accident investigation, driver training and enforcement.
Click here to download the Sundar Report (pdf) >