Blogs

Search ‘Indian traffic’ or ‘India driving’ on the Internet and what you find is a load of articles, memes, and videos on the madness that is driving in India. While these are amusing to read or watch, they underscore how dangerous Indian roads. On average 17 people die every hour on India’s roads. Most of these deaths (not to mention serious injuries) are the drivers’ fault, says Government of India data (Road Accidents in India 2015).

In the previous post on how the media (Tamil and English) covers road accidents, we looked at the kind of details provided, and sensationalism in the articles. This post, based on 104 of the 181 Tamil and English media reports that were published between January and April 2016, analyses reportage on the causes of accidents, geography (rural vs urban), and road user behaviour.

The years 2011-2020 have been designated as the Decade of Action for Road Safety by the World Health Organisation (WHO). This is a global acknowledgement of the gravity of road safety issues across the world and the lives being lost to it. Internationally, road accidents kill as many people as the major pandemics, malaria and TB^[1] .

If you’ve spent any time on Indian roads, chances are you’ve seen an accident. Why, there is one every 4 minutes. So many that they are hard to escape – and I’m not saying that as a prophet of doom. 

Introduction

In 2014, Tamil Nadu had the highest number of road accidents in the country and the highest number of deaths. Media reports invariably say that Indian roads are considered some of most dangerous in the world. Considering all these alarming stories on the low level of road safety in India, I thought it would be interesting to look at how public opinion is shaped on the issue of road accidents and road safety.

Back in 2000, I was conscripted into teaching a friend to drive a two-wheeler. My friend had bought a Scooty or rather inveigled her father into buying one. He did so with the proviso that I teach her to drive it. So every weekend I would head over to their place and we would drive around.