Traffic Violations in NCR are one of the major causes of severe road accidents. President of IRTE, Rohit Baluja gave his take on road traffic violations…
Delhi experiences approximately 436 million Road Traffic Violations on a daily basis. According to a study conducted by the Institute of Road Traffic Education (ITRE), 25% of these violations are due to faulty road engineering and environment.
Image source: NDTV
Analysing the government data, almost 1,50,000 people are getting killed annually because of road accidents. Majority of these get blamed on rash driving, driver of the vehicle, or problem with the vehicle. But studies at ITRE show different results. Even though the above causes are certainly reasons for road accidents, it also includes major causes like road traffic rules violations.
Focus of Police on Traffic Violations in NCR
Traffic Violations in NCR are one of the major causes of severe road accidents. President of IRTE, Rohit Baluja gave his take on road traffic violations and expressed that the Delhi Police and other forces in the country focus on documents to determine the reason for Road violations.
They focus on immovable objects such as Driving License, Pollution Certificate, Registration certificate to determine traffic violations in NCR. These are all administrative and legal violations. Minimum attention is paid to moving violations.
Image source: India today
In the year 2017, the Supreme court added new segments in their category of dangerous driving and enhanced fines. These segments included-
- Driving beyond the allowed speed,
- Speeding past a Red Light,
- Using Mobile phone while Driving,
- Driving on the wrong side
It was believed that high fines will stop people from violating traffic rules. In 2017, Delhi collected a huge amount of 64.8 crore fine whereas casualties due to road accidents was 1584. In 2021, Delhi police collected INR 493 crore of fines but the casualties did not go down by much and remained at 1230.
Accidents saw a decrease in the years 2019 and 2020, but it was only because of the lock down that was implemented across the country due to the pandemic.
Why focus on Road Engineering to reduce accidents?
Investigations for fatal road accidents usually fall under the jurisdiction of officers of ranks up to head constable to Sub-inspectors. According to their training, they are not knowledgeable about the complex rules and regulations of traffic violations and focus on factors such as Driver, vehicle etc.
Image source: Cartoq
Rohit Baluja said, “…the police need to be given basic training to understand the different elements of traffic violations…”
In the Judicial hearings, Road accidents are given the least amount of importance in violations and even then emphasis is paid on the amount of compensations that should be given to the victim rather than identifying the cause and consequences of these accidents and taking measures to correct them.
IRTE also stated that victims are oftentimes advised not to file an FIR when the cause of accidents lies in absence of advanced traffic management or failures in the road environment.
Image source: Daily Mail
Many accidents are caused because there are no alerts for faulty engineering of road infrastructure like Large ditches in the middle of roads, Caved parts of road, Boulders or stones on the road can cause accidents leading to heavy injuries.
Conclusion
India has signed a signatory to the UN declaration, aiming to reduce its road accidents by 50% by the year 2030. India makes up 11% of the total road accidents that happen globally.
This is due to Indian drivers not paying attention to road signs and alerts. In Delhi, it has been observed that many signs are unclear, hidden, missing or wrong.
Rohit Baluja expressed that some simple measures like, “…appropriate road markings and traffic signs, and minor layout changes in the road junctions (Road engineering & infrastructure) are proven measures which significantly reduces road accidents.”
