One reason why there is lax enforcement of road rules is that the political class gets involved. A crackdown on helmets in cities raises the hackles of random low-level politicians. little do they realise that the enforcement of such rules would help save lives. lives of voters

We know by now that Prime Minister Narendra Modi likes taking big, dramatic decisions. We can argue about the success and failures of the strikes across the line of Control and the impact of demonetisation. Did the first stop terror attacksIJ No. Did it send a message to the likes of Hafiz Saeed. Sure, it did. And demonetisation may not have been the devastating nuclear attack on India’s cash economy that some thought it would be, but has it established a ‘new normal’IJ Yes, it has.

And while the Opposition shed crocodile tears and disrupted Parliament to score political brownie points, three months on, things have settled down. The results of India’s listed companies do show somewhat of an impact as growth numbers will be depressed, according to various studies. But what the scare-mongers fail to tell you is that subsequent growth will be higher. But will that stop the argumentsIJ No, we as Indians love arguing and writing Op-ed’s. Ad nauseum.

But for his next big-bang announcement, once this election cycle is done, may I be bold enough to suggest one. And this is something I believe will have cross-party approval. last year, a number of people died on Indian roads. Close to 1,50,000 people died — an average of 450 a day. With increasing numbers of motor vehicles, our lax implementation of traffic rules and our delightful demographic dividend, this number is only going to grow. One can safely predict that in 2017, the average number of Indians dying on our roads every single day will touch close to 500.

Think about that for a second. Because in 2016,l only 271 people died in air crashes across the world — the largest death toll occurring when a plane carrying the Chapecoense football team crashed. And that tragedy fetched global headlines. But think of the broken families and lives that are shattered every single day in India because a bus falls into a gorge or because a badly-loaded school van has an accident. This is not a topic that enthuses television analysts who confuse entertainment with news, so we don’t discuss it. But road accidents are one of the leading causes of death of young people in India.

The past week alone has seen some devastating accidents in the capital and its neighbouring cities. An accident a few days ago in Ghaziabad, which involved an autorickshaw and an expensive sports utility vehicle snuffed out four young lives in an instant. And some of these accidents get reported breathlessly for a day or so in the newspapers before the rough and tumble of political news takes over. If there has been a major accident in a smaller town, even when a bus loaded with passengers fall down a gorge, it barely warrants a mention in large city newspapers. And hyperactive news anchors will recycle old news, but road safety barely warrants a mention.

We need immediate action to improve road safety in India. We need order on our roads, because the chaos that municipalities, States, courts and the Union Government have allowed to fester for decades has led to a rotten state of affairs. A rotten state of affairs that is so rotten that punishments for traffic violations are a joke, and there is possibly only one city in India with a degree of organised traffic — Chandigarh. And the simple reason behind Chandigarh having the most organised roads in India is simple: It is the fear of punishment.

Take two simple things which are routinely violated across India — the first is the lack of sensitivity towards wearing helmets and the secondly the near universal acceptance of triple-riding on motorcycles. The lack of the fear of punishment and what can only be described as the selfish attitude of most drivers on the road is enabled by poor policing. The sad fact is that traffic police in most parts of the country are not well trained and do not bother with small everyday violations. But to blame them alone would be unfair, as governance has also failed in improving road safety.

Take the advent of battery-powered e-rickshaws. There is little doubt of the tremendous utility of such vehicles providing low-cost, low-pollution last-mile connectivity. However, the manufacture of such vehicles has become a cottage industry, with little regard to passenger and pedestrian safety. In cities across India, drivers of these vehicles drive at night without any lights whatsoever to eke out some extra range.

Minus any form of warning other road users of their impending approach, particularly in poorly-lit streets and sometimes major arterial roads where they are not supposed to ply, these vehicles are a menace and often an unlicenced silent death-trap. And we have allowed our famous jugaad to break onto our roads, vegetable vendors repurpose old scooters to have motorised carts without any approvals.

So, what can be done to improve the situationIJ Not only do we need an overall national direction towards road-safety we also need proper cooperative federalism, as road policing is a state subject. And this should be an apolitical initiative, because, when it comes to saving lives as well as combating the the economic costs of traffic mismanagement and accidents, there must not be politics. And a way to start would be to strictly enforce road rules.

One reason why there is lax enforcement of road rules is that the political class gets involved. A crackdown on helmets in cities raises the hackles of random low-level politicians. They claim that these guidelines are discriminatory against the poor and the middle-classes who break the rules. little do they realise that the enforcement of such rules would help save lives. lives of voters. Across the country, we allow dangerous driving habits and overloaded vehicles to fester like open wounds because that is the way things are apparently.

Also, very crucially, there needs to be strict prosecution of those in large cars who have accidents. There is a widespread belief in this country that those who commit wanton road disasters get away with homicide because of their wealth and access to power, just take the case of a famous film-star. Even high-profile cases which eventually get prosecuted due to rare instances of media pressure, take years to wind through courts.

There needs to be an urgent effort by this Government on road safety. This will not stop accidents, but if this country, if Narendra Modi has the ambition of pulling it up by its bootstraps into an economic success story, that needs to be displayed on our roads. We talk with pride of the colour and chaos of this country, but we should not be proud of the chaos on our roads. We cannot be proud of the fact that our young people are dying in their thousands every week. We should stop wringing our hands and do something about it.

(The writer is Managing Editor, The Pioneer)