Call for independent road safety audit

CHENNAI: Road accidents in India due to driver error is just part of the story. What doesn’t get as much attention is the contribution of poor quality roads to the accident rate. However, in recent times, relatives of victims have started taking the judicial route to make the concerned authorities accountable for their negligence. In India, many road and traffic projects are implemented without giving due attention to road safety. In many projects, safety devices are included in the designs, but are simply not constructed in practice. Road maintenance is mostly limited to filling potholes and cleaning drainage facilities, without installing missing traffic signs, guard rails, road markings and other safety features essential to ensure road safety. Traffic projects in the cities are devoid of traffic engineering improvements.Considering the present level of public awareness and negligence on the part of the concerned authorities, court cases are bound to snowball. What is the way forward? In developed countries, a system of road safety audit (RSA) of road/traffic projects, whether new or existing, has been introduced to address the problem.Objectives of RSAAn RSA is a formal systematic study of new and existing road/traffic projects by an independent and qualified audit team, in order to detect defects that could result in an accident. The main aim is to minimise the number and severity of accidents. A secondary objective is to reduce the whole life costs of a scheme as unsatisfactory designs can be expensive to rectify after they have been implemented. Benefits Studies conducted by the Danish ministry of transport have shown that RSA was beneficial with a rate of return of 146 per cent within the first year after completion of construction. The Australian experience showed that the cost-benefit ratio ranged from 2.4:1 to 84:1 in the case of RSA carried out on existing roads and from 3:1 to 242:1 in the case of RSA carried out at design stage of the project. A UK study showed that the average num­ber of casualties per site dropped from 2.08 to 0.83 per annum after RSA was implemented. In sum, it helps reduce the project’s life cycle costs and leads to improved quality and management practices.The Indian government must commission an RSA, conducted by an independent expert team, in all phases of road and traffic projects. That will hopefully help reduce the accident rate.