FARIDABAD: The government has made it mandatory for highway engineers to visit fatal accident sites under their jurisdiction within 48 hours of any such incident. They will take corrective measures to prevent future accidents, Union road transport and highways secretary, Anurag Jain, said on Monday while adding that the ministry will also roll out “cashless treatment” for immediate medical care for victims by March next year.
“We have issued instruction to our engineer that they need to visit the site in 48 hours and will look into all the engineering aspect. Instead of waiting for 2-3 years for declaring the stretch as black spot, we have to start taking immediate corrective action. monthly analysis of data and taking corrective measures,” Jain said while addressing the Global Road Safety Initiative meet organised by Institute of Road Traffic Education (IRTE) and two major UN organisations, UNESCAP and UNECE, which formulate global norms.
On the cashless treatment for road crash victims, which was provisioned in the amended Motor Vehicle Act of 2019, but has been delayed, Jain said, “We are working on this and hopefully in the next three months we will be able to roll out a programme, ensuring emergency care for every road accident victim… Now we have taken a decision. While the health ministry is coming up with an overall trauma care plan, we are hopeful of rolling out our scheme before March. This scheme can be plugged into the bigger programme.”
The cashless scheme aims to provide free medical care till any crash victim stabilises.
Highlighting how India faces a different challenge than many other countries, Jain said while all along the government has been focussing more on cars and safety of four-wheelers, the number of two-wheeler occupants killed is very high and the number of pedestrians killed is also a cause of major concern. As per road transport ministry data, 44% of the total 1.68 lakh persons killed in road crashes in 2022 were two-wheeler occupants.
While flagging that road user behaviour and enforcement of traffic rules remain the key to reduce road fatalities, Jain said they have taken up with the education ministry for including road safety in the school and college curricula. “They have agreed and hopefully road safety will become the part of course curriculum. The new generation will get more sensitised,” he added.
The three-day Global Road Safety Initiative meet is deliberating upon finalising suggestive codes of practice to reduce road crash fatalities and injuries in low and middle-income countries.
Rohit Baluja, president of IRTE said that the global road safety experts will be working towards deliberating and finalising suggestive codes of safe practice, driver certification, diagnosis of road crashes through multi-disciplinary crash investigation and safety of vulnerable road users.
“The text books with road safety curriculum for classes VI to X have already been provided to the state government for necessary adoption by the schools. our effort would be to inculcate good road behaviour through awareness campaigns in schools, inbuilt road safety curriculum in the existing text books, etc. Road Safety Films, Road Safety reels are being provided for screening on television and playing on radio,” Baluja added.