India, seventh largest country by area, second largest country by population and the world’s largest democratic country. All these are facts and figures related to the home of 1.3 billion plus people. We are one of the fast growing economies. The rising Indian economy has certainly affected our lifestyles too.
Gone are the days when we considered that having an air conditioner, car etc. as a luxury. The rising economies resulted in the rise in income thereby increased human aspirations. The items which we considered as luxury became a necessity. One of the major segments which grew was the automobile segment.
The growing number of automobiles has also resulted in more traffic congestion and also traffic related accidents. Traffic accidents are one of the major sources of deaths, injuries and property damage every year. India reported a traffic accident rate of about 0.8 per 1000 vehicles in 2015
This all points out to interesting case filed by Dr. S Rajasekharan, an orthopedic surgeon. He filed petition under Article 32 of the constitution against Ministry of Transport for enforcement of road safety norms and appropriate treatment of accident victims. Since the petitioner had no personal interest in the matter, the writ petition filed by him was taken up a public interest litigation. The honorable court passed an order on 22nd April, 2014 constituting a committee on road safety under the chairmanship of Justice K.S Radhakrishnan.
The issues the committee has reported was a detailed one, it included the road conditions, traffic awareness, state road safety council, road safety fund, regulations etc. Surprisingly, barring few states, all states complied to the Motor Vehicles Act 1988. But still traffic accidents are on the rise, why?
The expert reviews and reports shows that we look good only in paper!
It also shows us sad face of largest democracy. We all know what to be done for reducing accidents but we are simply not following it. Does the reports or the forceful enforcement of law work in our favour? Are we really concerned for our own lives? Are the rules so tough to follow?
The traffic deaths show our poor commitment to traffic regulations. All the traffic signals, lane traffic,” U” turns, speed regulations etc. are some of the basic traffic regulations. But we are least bothered about adhering to traffic regulations. If anybody is policing on you, you follow it but does it imply that only if there is policing, one need to follow rules. It is not practically possible for any government to do policing of 1.3 billion population.
One more interesting thing about traffic rule violations is that we can see equality on all levels. It has no gender bias, no bias on economic conditions, no bias based on literacy level, no caste and religion bias etc etc.
Now it’s time to change ourselves, show the same equality in following the rules.
Follow rules, save lives, save families, save nation……!!!
Reference :
- W.P.(C) No. 295 of 2012
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