Experts underline importance of vehicular speed control to prevent road accidents

Kota: Reducing vehicle speed can prevent road crash incidents as an average 1 km increase in vehicular speed can lead to 3 per cent rise in such incidents, experts said.

Speaking during a webinar organised by CUTS International, a Jaipur-based NGO, as part of the 6th United Nations Global Road Safety Week, the experts underlined the importance of speed control mechanism to prevent road accidents.
Stressing that everyone has a right to feel safe on the streets, George Cheriyan, director, CUTS International, referred to the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways Report, 2019 which mentioned that road accidents kill almost 1.51 lakh people annually in India.

“Low speed in streets is a key in achieving ‘Vision Zero’, which is aimed at preventing even a single death in road transportation system, and moreover, reducing vehicle speed can prevent road crashes and reduce their impact. An average 1 km increase in speed can result in 3 percent rise in such crashes,” he said on Thursday quoting from the report. Nalin Sinha, India coordinator, GHAI said the Centre and road enforcement agencies should consider reducing the speed limit for motor vehicles on highways and in urban areas.

Gaurav H Gupta, deputy secretary, MoRTH, highlighted the various government initiatives and programmes on road safety.

“The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) is working on a school curriculum to inculcate safer behaviour on the road in the minds of children,” he said.

IIT Kharagpur professor Bhargab Maitra underlined the importance of traffic accessibility functions as well to ensure road safety on roads. He touched upon various speed management engineering tools and methods like recording and reporting methods, electronic monitoring of speed besides stressing upon the need of capacity building of all enforcement officials and policy makers on evidence-based speed management in India.

T Elangovan, the executive director of Kerala Road Safety Authority, talked about the speed management techniques adopted by the Kerala government.

He mentioned that the most adversely affected road users from high speed are the vulnerable road users. He highlighted the utility of Traffic Control Devices, centrally-monitored Traffic Signal Systems and enforcing speed limits through GPS and speed governors which all are very helpful in road safety and being enforced in Kerala.

He also talked about the positive outcome of Safe Kerala Corridors which are now five in number and more are to be scaled up soon.

Veerendra Rathore, District Transport Officer, Bhilwara, Rajasthan also talked about the speed calming innovating initiatives enforced under his jurisdiction of Bhilwara district.