Ever since I met with an accident in Jan-2014 on Chennai - Guntur highway near Gudur, I have been pondering on the road safety issues. I was lucky to esapce unscathed with damages to the car; and not to mention the cause of the accident is due to unsafe way of transporting metallic pipes on a luggage carrier which was racing behind my car. When the vehicles going before my car stopped suddenly, and so did I and so did the luggage carrier. But the iron pipes piled on the carrier pointing upward, untied, flew in air and landed on my car, a many of them. Breaking the window glasses and side view mirrors. It was only luck that made no pipe pierce through the rear glass and hit me, a narrow escape.
Allowing such unsafe transportation methods on the highways is only one aspect of how dangerous how Indian Highways could be. Below are my observations being a 2 years car user on the Indian highways.
Allowing such unsafe transportation methods on the highways is only one aspect of how dangerous how Indian Highways could be. Below are my observations being a 2 years car user on the Indian highways.
1. Level crossings after blind turnings - Level crossings on highways are always dangerous and drivers are aware of it and keep the vehicle under contol, preparing to avoid the worst hit, if vehicles suddenly cross and block the way. But the danger multiplies by many times when such level crossisngs are immediately after the blind turnings. A simple sign board is not sufficient to avert the dangers. Such crossings should be removed with an underpass.
2. Level Crossings after a Steep - The same issue with such crossings after a steep where there is zero visibility of what lies ahead. For an unsuspecting driver this could be very fatal.
3. Bushy Dividers - Don't get me wrong. Yes the plants on the dividers are a shield to high beam blinding lights from the vehicles on the other side of the road at nights. But there is a bigger problem with such bushes as the local cattle graze on them and suddenly jump on to the road causing accidents and loss of life. The poor creatures are at the risk as well. One of my family friends on a fateful day was riding a bike on the highway and when suddenly a buffalow came across the road from the divider bushes, he crashed onto it, his brain got damaged to such an extent that he has to learn everything from begining, starting from speech, identifying family memebers, basic math. It is such a painful state to see anybody in that state. Highways are not for cattle grazing. These things should not be allowed onto the highways where vehicles run faster. So many times people die in trying to avoid a hit to the cattle on the roads.
The people who design roads should employ common sense and foresee such fatalities and provide better road safety measures. When some politicians die in road accidents the govt. machinery wakes up for a while and promise to do many things to reduce the fatalities. After few days everybody forgets.
The first thing to do is fix the bad road design. Close the dangerous level crossings and build under passes or over bridges. Close the sideways with mesh so that people don't drive on the wrong way, no cattle enters the roads to graze on the dividers. Strictly punish who transports things in dangerous manners without any concern for safety. Punish recklessness very strictly.
Educate the village dwellers where the highways passthrough. They are in complete oblivion of the consequences of reckeless driving and how dangerous it actually is for them as well as the commuters. Just avoid building highways through villages, just connect them with small separate roads.
Last but not the least, make ABS and Airbags mandatory in all vehicles. Make it a must to put on seat belt, without which the car shouldn't move. Every four wheeler should be equipped with a warning system which warns the driver when he crosses the speed limit on a given road. Human life is so valuable, losing it on the roads is so terrible a thing to come to terms with.
