Can it get any worse?

H. Kishie Singh

YOu can fool some of the people all the time, and all the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time!” Abraham Lincoln said that and he was so right. A year ago Nitin Gadkari, Minister of Road Transport and Highways, reiterated a commitment to reduce the road accidents and fatalities by 50 per cent by 2020. The present figure of fatalities is 2,00,000 a year. To bring it down by half is not going to happen anytime soon. Everything the government is doing points towards the opposite direction. 

When Gopinath Munde, a minister was killed in a crash in Delhi, there was hullabaloo to make rear seat belts compulsory. Nothing has happened. That would have been a step in the right direction. 

The main factor contributing to road crashes are driving errors, badly designed roads, over-speeding and of course alcohol. It is a fact that most drivers in India cannot handle speed, one of the reasons for crashes. We have been catapulted out of the bullock-cart age to the space age. Every car on our roads is capable of a 150 kmph speed. 

To make these speed-freaks happy, Gadkari promised super highways. After inspecting the Jalandhar-Amritsar National Highway, he said, “When complete, you will be able to drive Amritsar to Delhi in two-and-a-half hours!” That is a distance of over 400 km. Gadkari also announced that NH-8, Delhi-Jaipur, when improved will be a two hours drive. That is a distance of 270 km. You will have to average 150 kmph to achieve this. 

Outdoing Gadkari was Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav. The 302 km Agra-Lucknow super-highway opened recently. And what a grand opening it was. It was hailed as India’s first emergency air-strip. To prove this, three Mirage and three Sukhoi aircrafts were to land on the highway. But discretion being the better part of valour, the aircrafts just skimmed the road. A very wise move! Another claim: It will take five-and-a-half hours from Agra to Lucknow while previously it took 12-14 hours for this 302 km stretch. Five-and-a-half hours mean 330 minutes to cover 302 km. This is simply not possible. 

The road is supposed to have ‘controlled access’. That cannot happen in India. The most strictly controlled access area or road is the Budh International Circuit. It is privately owned and no expense is spared to keep it air-tight. However, on day one of the first F-1 race in India, the race was brought to a halt because a stray dog was meandering on the race track. 

One of the largest and most dangerous vehicle on our roads is the car-carrier. Ignoring all engineering norms, like centre of gravity, these carry up to 16-18 cars on two levels. The government has allowed the length of these already massive behemoths from 16 metres to 18.75 metres. A deadly hazard just got deadlier.

This is what we can look forward to. Fast cars, badly designed roads, irresponsible and untrained drivers, from two wheelers to 18 wheelers jostling for space. Add to this the high density of traffic, which in itself is a traffic hazard. It is estimated that by 2050, India will have 400 million cars on the road. The highest car density in any country on the planet. By this measure, will road safety ever become a reality? 

Happy motoring!