Road Safety in India

Why in News?

The Supreme Court recently asked the Road Transport Ministry to examine concerns over weak enforcement of seat-belt and child-safety requirements. The editorial argues that judicial directions and individual compliance must be supported by safer roads, effective enforcement and timely trauma care. 

Scale of the Problem: 

• High mortality: India recorded over 1.77 lakh road deaths in 2024, approximately 484 deaths daily.
• Vulnerable road users: Two-wheeler users accounted for 46.2% and pedestrians 20.6% of fatalities (together over 2/3rds of total fatalities). 
• Dominance of speeding: Over-speeding was the recorded violation associated with 70.3% of fatalities in 2024. 

The Stockholm Declaration on Road Safety, adopted at the 3rd Global Ministerial Conference on Road Safety in 2020, sets a new global target to reduce road traffic deaths and injuries by 50% by 2030.

Why is safety-device enforcement necessary?

• Proven protection: According to WHO, seat belts can reduce occupant deaths by up to 50%, while child restraints can reduce infant deaths by 71%. They prevent ejection and reduce impact against vehicle interiors. 
• Limited coverage: Seat belts and child restraints primarily protect vehicle occupants; they do not directly protect pedestrians or two-wheeler riders, who constitute two-thirds of fatalities. Helmet enforcement therefore remains equally critical. 
• Prevention and injury mitigation differ: Restraints reduce injury severity after a collision; speed management and safer infrastructure can reduce both crash likelihood and severity.
• Compliance requires institutional capacity: Traffic police shortages, intermittent checking and disabled seat-belt reminders weaken enforcement. Higher penalties yield limited benefits when detection remains unlikely. 

Structural causes requiring attention:

• Speed-oriented road design: Wide carriageways, unsafe junctions and high-speed roads passing through settlements expose people to dangerous impact speeds. WHO estimates that a 1% increase in mean speed raises fatal-crash risk by 4%. 
• Neglect of pedestrians: Missing footpaths, inconvenient crossings and inadequate lighting force people into fast-moving traffic; children, older persons and persons with disabilities face particular risks.
• Fragmented accountability: Transport departments, police, highway agencies, municipalities and health services control different parts of road safety, making responsibility for outcomes diffuse.
• Delayed emergency care: Ambulance delays, weak trauma facilities and hesitation among bystanders can convert survivable injuries into fatalities.
• Economic and social consequences: Death or disability can remove a household’s breadwinner, increase medical expenditure and impose unpaid caregiving burdens. 

Existing Legal Provisions:

The Motor Vehicles Act, 1988, strengthened by the 2019 Amendment, provides several relevant mechanisms:

• Penalises seat-belt violations and carrying children below 14 without a safety belt or child restraint system, with a statutory fine of ₹1000.
• Provides for helmet requirements and penalties for non-compliance.
• Enables electronic monitoring and enforcement of road safety.
• Protects Good Samaritans who assist crash victims.
• Provides accountability for failure to meet road-design, construction and maintenance standards; specified failures resulting in death or disability can attract fines up to ₹1 lakh. Responsibility thus extends beyond drivers to road providers. 

Additionally, the 2022 rules under the Central Motor Vehicles Rules prescribe safety measures for children below four travelling on motorcycles, including a safety harness, prescribed helmet protection and a 40 km/h speed restriction. 

Judicial Contribution and its Limits: 

• SaveLIFE Foundation v. Union of India (2016): The Supreme Court gave binding force to safeguards protecting Good Samaritans against harassment, addressing bystanders’ reluctance to assist victims. 
• S. Rajaseekaran v. Union of India (2017): The Court issued directions covering road-safety institutions, audits, traffic calming and emergency care, recognising the need for systemic intervention. 

Courts can enforce duties and demand accountability, but cannot substitute for daily policing, engineering decisions, maintenance budgets or functioning hospitals. 

Way Forward: 

• Manage speed through design: Introduce appropriately designed low-speed school and market zones, raised crossings, safer junctions and median protection; supplement these with automated enforcement. 
• Protect vulnerable users: Provide continuous accessible footpaths, safe crossings and cycling infrastructure; improve reliable public and school transport to reduce risky exposure.
• Fix dangerous locations and assign responsibility: Combine black-spot rectification with preventive network-wide audits. Publish repair deadlines and enforce accountability of road providers where statutory conditions are met.
• Improve vehicles and compliance: Require effective, tamper-resistant restraint reminders, prevent disabling accessories and enforce correctly fastened helmets and rear-seat belts.
• Make trauma care operational: PM-RAHAT, launched in 2026, provides eligible motor-vehicle crash victims cashless treatment up to ₹1.5 lakh for a maximum of seven days at designated hospitals.  
• Measure safety outcomes: Integrate police, hospital and road-engineering data through systems such as e-DAR (e-Detailed Accident Report is a central digital platform created by the Indian government to record, track, and analyse road accidents in real time). 

Road safety requires shared responsibility backed by enforceable duties. India must combine safer behaviour with roads and emergency services designed to ensure that a foreseeable human error does not become a fatality.