The Supreme Court Committee on Road Safety has directed the States and Union Territories to make road safety audit of construction projects of more than five km stretch mandatory. This means all new projects of five km or more should be undertaken only after the design stage audit is conducted and the recommendations of the auditor are implemented.
The Committee has also expressed unhappiness as the number of road fatalities has reduced by marginally 0.4 percent in 2017 over the corresponding period of 2016 in the national Capital. This is despite the fact that the Committee had asked all States and Union Territories to reduce road fatalities by 10 percent in 2017.
As per data five lives end on Delhi’s roads everyday and there is one death every four minutes due to a road accident in India. The worst accident hotspots are near flyovers and junctions. The Capital’s vehicular population has officially breached the 1.05-crore mark, with over 94% of it being constituted by private vehicles. Statistics compiled by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways in its report titled ‘Road Accidents in India 2016’, showed that Chennai had the highest number of road accidents at 7,486 while Delhi had the highest number of deaths –1,591 –due to road accidents.
According to the report, T-junctions have emerged as the most unsafe spots on the Capital’s streets having seen as many as 1,008 accidents in 2016 followed by 837 at Y-junctions, arm junctions, at 742 and as many as 270 accidents at roundabouts which, experts said, were evidence of both engineering faults and laxity in enforcement.
As per report by traffic police and Delhi Government, majority of stretches in Delhi have a high density of two-wheelers. “These stretches have too many cuts or lack U-turns prompt two-wheeler riders to travel on the wrong carriageway. Such roads need to be redesigned for safe movement of vehicles,” it said. Several flyovers and inter sections have faulty design which caused traffic jam or accidents regularly,” the report said.
On the proposal for road safety audits, the officials of ministries of Urban Development and Road Transport and Highways said though it agreed with the suggestion but there are a deficiency of qualified auditors in road safety engineering.
The Committee, appointed by the Supreme Court to reduce road fatalitie, directed Delhi government and Delhi police to find out reasons for the marginal decrease to achieve the target of 10 percent reduction in road accidents in 2018. The Committee has pointed out that Delhi has not set up road safety fund as directed by the committee on November 24, 2016. It has also expressed annoyance as district level road safety committees have not been formulated to examine and analysis of accidents and identify all vulnerability road segments in each district.
The committee has expressed annoyance as UT Road Safety Council met only once in 2017. It has also directed the council to meet at least twice in a year to take stock of the road safety measures and give appropriate directions to the concerned departments.