Road Safety Week is no time for celebration, rather a moment for introspection.
It is the time to recognise the despair of over 3, 00,000 families who lose their loved ones each year in India in road crashes(WHO Estimates).
To realise the pain and misery of over 2.8 million victims who get seriously injured in road accidents each year.
It is time to stand by thousands of families thrown into poverty because their earning members have been either killed or disabled for life in road crashes.
It is a moment to recognise the gravity of the calamity befallen on families and individuals. People who are not able to understand why they have met with such severe or fatal injuries.
We lose 10,000 children below the age of 18 and more than 35,000 youth between the age of 18 and 25 every year. It is time to sense the pain of those parents who have lost their young children in road accidents.
Road crash investigation in India is not scientific, rather they are rudimentary and non-supportive. Therefore, people seem to have lost their faith in the police and consequently the judiciary, as they don't expect justice to come their way.
It is time for the departments/authorities of transport, police, road, and health to introspect on what went wrong. To reflect on what they did not achieve in the last year and why road safety within their domains could not be improved.
Also, it is essential to highlight the successful initiatives which could be shared and put into practice.
It is time for politicians and other decision making stakeholders to audit the tall statements they made in the previous years. Statements they made to reduce the burden of injuries and fatalities caused by road crashes. It is time for them to face how those were proved otherwise.
Should they be made accountable for making such faulty promises? Or for supporting or investing public money in unscientific solutions that did not yield any results?
Friends let us not deceive ourselves, nor insult the reality that 820 persons would die today, tomorrow and each day in the year.
Each Road Safety Week that has gone by has witnessed 5,600 road deaths and 20,000 severe injuries, with no solution so far.
It is good if you want to observe the Road Safety Week. However, stay away from the hypocrisy of such seminars, events, speeches, and tall statements. These are cosmetic and do not contribute to a viable solution.
Imagine that the souls of millions of road crash victims and grieving families of billions of road crash sufferers are witness to what you are doing or saying!
Instead, let us observe this week in the following ways:
- Contribute to devising viable and scientifically proven methods and techniques to reduce severe and fatal crashes.
- Support the capacity building of traffic management systems that would deliver road safety effectively.
- Create the basis which would help in promoting defensive road usage. Not only during the safety week but as a habit.
- Contribute to building a network to support the grieved families and victims.
- Show the mirror to the hypocrites. Speak up and let them know that we can see through them. Their duplicity is shameful. An insult to the victims and their families who became the innocent targets of this avoidable tragedy.
At IRTE, we do not believe in emphasising on a Road Safety Week.
For us, each moment is a safety moment, each month is a safety month, and each year is a safety year.
Each tear that rolls down the eye of an aggrieved family or a road crash victim is valuable and accountable. As it drives us to continue our work without looking for media, political or any other recognition.
Dr Rohit Baluja
President, Institute of Road Traffic Education &
Director, College of Traffic Management
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