A grisly road accident that killed six members of a family on the Delhi-Meerut Expressway in Ghaziabad on Tuesday was the latest glaring example of the shocking lack of traffic sense that permeates Indian roads and the lax attitudes of the authorities that enable such behaviour. CCTV cameras showed a speeding bus being driven on the wrong side of the carriageway ramming into a Mahindra TUV 300, which unsuccessfully tried to change lanes at the last minute. Three children were among those who died on the spot. The driver of the bus – it appears that the vehicle was once used to ferry schoolchildren and later kept using the board even though it was used by corporate offices to transport employees – was arrested and a first information report registered against him. But that doesn’t dispel lingering questions about how the authorities didn’t apprehend the bus as it drove down the wrong carriageway for 7.2 kilometres, and why no traffic patrol car or police van flagged the bus down, or stopped the driver from entering the wrong lane. Even though the accident was caught on camera, there was no system in place to trigger an alarm and initiate on-ground action once the bus was spotted roaring down the wrong lane.
Records showed the bus racked up at least 19 challans in its name — for contravention of the speed limit, not following traffic directions, driving without a licence and failure to use a seat belt — since 2018. Little was done in this regard. Predictably, the accident sparked a blame game between authorities, with the police saying it was busy with Kanwar Yatra duties and the National Highways Authority of India should have alerted it, and the body insisting that it was the job of the local law enforcement agency to issue a warning. Authorities must investigate if diversions and congregations set up for the yatra are affecting traffic flow and endangering lives.
Data from the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) shows that road accidents are among the deadliest killers in India. In 2021, the last year for which data was available, the country recorded 412,432 accidents that killed 53,972 people. Yet, there is little policy attention drawn to reduce this burden. The solutions can start small: act against small-time offences such as jumping red light, speeding, and wrong-lane driving; make sure that the authorities put in place systems to apprehend rule-breakers; and instil a greater sense of discipline and civic sense. Sometimes small interventions can help avert a terrible tragedy.
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