Road Deaths- Where are we going wrong?

The recent death of the young 17 year old Ayazzudin, the son of our ex-cricket skipper Mohd Azharuddin, and his cousin Ajmal, in Hydeabad in a 2-wheeelr accident once again sent that familiar shiver down our spine. These 2 kids were trying to beat their own speed record on their superbike gifted to them by their indulgent well-off parents. These precious lives having been lost, and condolences paid, it is time we faced where we are heading.

 Deaths due to road traffic accidents (RTA) in India registered a sharp 6.1% rise between 2006 and 2007. However, road safety experts say the real numbers could be higher since many of these accident cases are not even reported. "There is no estimate of how many injured in road accidents die a few hours or days after the accident," points out Rohit Baluja, member of the UN Road Safety Collaboration and Commission of Global Road Safety representing Asia. RTA is all set to be the 5^th largest killer in society very soon.

We Indians are very unsafe in the job of driving. India, with 1% of global cars, account for 6% of the world’s RTAs, a bit of statitistics that can’t do us proud. It is estimated that an accident occurs every 7 minutes in India; by the time you have read my column 2 lives would have been lost!

While road deaths have started coming down in developed countries, they are spiralling up in developing ones like India. In our true Indian spirit, we have everyone to blame for the disaster: the government for bad roads, the traffic police for not ensuring safety on roads, mobile phones, alcohol,  fate, and much more.

We are quick to blame the police for “harassing” and taking bribes when our children are caught without helmets.The poor traffic policemen, bombarded by phone calls from seniors to let go of so-and-so VIP’s son, has virtually given up on trying to enforce this rule on the road. But whose loss is it?

Teachers of schools and colleges have also happily absolved themselves. “We cannot see what they do outside the campus”, has become the familiar song.

And when parents lose their children to RTA, they must find a scapegoat: the government, the police, the school, the roads, peers, and friends.... virtually everyone, except their own selves who indulged their children but did not groom them to be responsible!  There is no running away from the painful truth.

As published in HT City( Hindustan Times) dated 25 September, 2011.