Watching CCTV footage of the Janakpuri hit-and-run case, in which two people lost their lives, is not easy. A car speeding out of control hits a senior citizen out for a morning walk, head on, and he disappears from the screen. The car shows no signs of stopping. One would learn later that the car was allegedly being driven by a highly inebriated 21-year-old, and just moments before running over 67-year-old Ashwani Anand, he had struck and killed Kameshwar Prasad, 40, and seriously injured a man called Santosh.
This, when the city is still reeling under the shock of the horrific killing of 32-year-old Siddharth Sharma allegedly by an underage driver out for a spin in his father's Mercedes. The accused is now being tried as an adult.
These cases are only isolated in the manner in which they were captured on camera. Otherwise, such road crashes in India are alarmingly frequent, killing 400 people each day. The country, unfortunately, has repeatedly failed to act. In 1999, 21-year-old Sanjeev Nanda, driving drunk, killed six people in Delhi. The case made headlines and Nanda was eventually awarded time already served in prison and two years of community service. In 2006, another 21-year-old, Alistair Pereira, driving drunk, ran over and killed seven people in Mumbai. Just last year, a young corporate lawyer, drove drunk 10 km in the wrong direction on the Eastern Expressway in Mumbai, before crashing her Audi SUV into a taxi. Two people died. Before, in-between and after these cases too there have been many horrific crashes. As per the Government's own statistics, between 1999 and 2015, over 20 lakh people have been killed in road crashes in India. The cases mentioned here became sensational for the manner, and impunity, with which the drivers drove drunk and killed several people at once.
How come then, despite many such cases, these incidents continue to occur every other week? The answer, to some extent, lies in the framework within which road safety is addressed in India. The principle legislation that covers road safety, the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988, is known to be a deficient legislation. It is not only missing deterrents for such homicidal behavior on our roads but also completely fails to protect 50% of road users, the non-motorized, vulnerable category, from which a majority of the victims in such cases also emerge. Almost every system in this legislation, ranging from driver training and licensing to post-crash investigation to penal provisions, is begging for reform.
While a campaign has been under way for several years demanding a strong road safety law for India, the above cases highlight a huge lacuna in our system, which a strong law alone cannot address. And that is enforcement, or the lack of it.
In all of the cases above, the drivers were able to drive drunk for a considerable distance before someone's death brought them to a halt. The police were merely responders in these cases and did very little, if nothing, to prevent them. In almost every city of India, the Traffic Police starts to disappear from our roads after 11 pm. This is despite the well-documented fact that most fatalities in road crashes occur between late-night to early-morning hours.
It takes infrequent "drives" by Police departments or major incidents to bring them out at night, and that too momentarily. Missing enforcement at night, combined with thin traffic in those hours, creates a perfect cocktail of death and destruction at the hands of drunk, speeding drivers. This must change. The Monsoon session of Parliament is coming up. Many of the state assemblies too will be in session soon. Our policymakers must take a bipartisan stand for road safety and ensure that the Right to Life enshrined in our Constitution is also delivered through strong road safety legislations, at both the Central and State levels.
The Motor Vehicles Act, 1988 (MVA) needs to be overhauled, and from what we hear, a Bill to amend and strengthen the MVA is likely to be introduced by Nitin Gadkari in the upcoming session. Along with this, it is imperative for States too to realize their responsibility towards road safety and enact
legislations to protect pedestrians, cyclists and non-motorised road users, on which the central government cannot legislate due to delineation of subjects under the Indian Constitution.
The CCTV footage of the Janakpuri incident not only brought to fore the horror of the crash but also the fact that the left-most lane, often used by pedestrians in areas with missing footpaths, was lined with cars, leaving no space to walk safely and forcing the elderly gentleman to be in direct line of the deadly driver. Finally, for these legislations to be effective, there is an urgent need for states to modernize traffic enforcement and shift the focus from responding to such horrific crashes to preventing them in the first place.
Our failure to enforce even basic traffic laws currently prevalent, such as those around speeding and drunk-driving, is not only leading to unimaginable emotional trauma for lakhs of families each year, but it is also causing and aiding many other crises in our country.
The huge case load on our judiciary recently made the Chief Justice of India appeal for urgent reforms. Consider this, every year more than ten lakh cases are filed in our courts pertaining to deaths, injuries and property damage from road crashes alone. Wouldn't prevention of these crashes provide some relief to our overburdened judiciary? Successive governments in India have been focusing on poverty alleviation. But what about the scores of bread-winners who, as pedestrians or cyclists, are snatched away from their nearly impoverished families by road crashes every day? The Government of India had to introduce the Swachh Bharat Cess to fund its
Swachh Bharat Abhiyan (Clean India Campaign). This cess wouldn't be needed if we invest a bit in controlling the epidemic of road crash deaths and injuries. According to the erstwhile Planning Commission of India, the country loses 3% of its GDP or Rs 1.8 lakh crores each year due to road crashes alone. The amount budgeted this year for the
Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, at Rs 9000 crore, is a small fraction of this monumental loss.
The case for urgent, concerted action for road safety cannot be stronger. Yet, so far, words have been louder than action. Whether this order will change, only time will tell.
(Piyush Tewari is the Founder & CEO of SaveLIFE Foundation and an Edward S. Mason Fellow at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government.)Disclaimer: The opinions expressed within this article are the personal opinions of the author. The facts and opinions appearing in the article do not reflect the views of NDTV and NDTV does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same.