Safe Speed Forums

Hi All!

"Who knows the person lying on road accident may be someone's dad or daughter? Someone's son or uncle. Friends or neighbors. Anyone's Mother. Don't stay indifferent to road accidents and Indian road safety issues & concerns. One life dedicated to safety is one life saved."

We are many colors with one Voice.

More than 100,000 people are dying on Indian roads every year.
Another million are seriously injured or maimed on our roads each year.
Other than the lives lost, road crashes economic cost to the nation, estimated a few years ago, was Rs. 55,000 crore.
Join this campaign and be a volunteer for this noble cause to reduce road crashes in India.

The Easy Drive Forum, (http://www.easydriveforum.com) believes reducing road crashes, implementing safety measures, and regulating traffic problems should be a far higher priority across all levels and portfolios of government.

If you agree, sign our online petition here :-> http://www.gopetition.com/online/9774.html ,
to tell your elected representatives to make life of individuals safer, smoother and hassle-free on Indian roads.

"I support the Easy Drive Forum's call for governments to greatly increase the priority of reducing road crashes. In doing so, we will save thousands of lives and greatly benefit the economy. I intend to vote for parties and candidates whose policies offer effective programs to help achieve "safer drivers in safer cars on safer roads" at the next parliamentary elections."

obviously speed cameras won't work - most of them have no money

100,000 dead each year on the roads!!!!

Is this to do with fatalism. It's God's will that I live or die etc?

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Malcolm W.
The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not represent the views of Safespeed.

They are not thinking on the lines to install Speed Cameras......

Rather they are thinking on the terms of invigorating Indian Traffic and let their voices be heard by the government.

A big part of it will be due to the fact that India's road safety culture is young. And of course the population is very big - 800m I think.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

Given the standard of driving in India that I have seen first hand, I'm surprised the body count isn't higher.

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What makes you think I'm drunk officer, have I got a fat bird with me?

It is almost 1100 M ...So you can think of the magnitude of the campaign......

I really wish to Congratulate all those guys...for such a bravery act.....

It is of course the immature road safety culture that results in the standards of driving observed.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

It was 800m not so long ago!

Has anyone got basic traffic stats?

- how many cars?
- ho many motorbikes?
- how many licenced drivers?
- total annual distance driven?

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

Anyone who has travelled on India's roads will tell you the road safety culture is not immature. It is non existant.

It's only the relatively low speeds which prevent the carnage being much worse. Although those same low speeds allow people to get away with things they would never attempt here.

Things I noticed from my time there.

Traffic lights are at best advisory, mostly ignored.

Both sides of a dual carriageway will be used for traffic in both directions. You can imagine what happens when you have HGVs mixing it with cars, mixing it with bicycles and camels and elephants. More often than not dangerously overloaded and in a poor state of repair (and that's just the elephants ).

If you come up behind a slower vehicle and can't see anything coming then you overtake. Even if the reason you can't see anything is that you are approaching a blind bend.

Everyone is constantly using the horn, not through frustration but to warn other road users of their presence. Our driver was much more concerned when his horn stopped working than when his wipers failed during a thunderstorm.

Reminds me - i need to visit Leics again( fortunately no camels or elephants)

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

India has one of the worst road safety records in the world.

From my observations...

Most of the vehicles were NOT roadworthy by any stretch of the imagination.
No obvious driving laws
Pedestrians wandering in and out of traffic
many roads shared with pedestrian traffic


Not to mention the common problem of pedestrians taking a dive in front of cars to blackmail drivers not to report it to the police. I have seen this happen first hand...

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Speed camera policy Kills

Don't forget the Cows that roam freely too...

Headlights are pretty much optional, most vehicles ran at night on sidelights, which may be due to zero street lighting, cats eyes etc.

Vehicle loading is also a major problem with the general limit to loading a vehicle being restricted to the absolute maximum that you can get on (goods or people). At least two of the accidents that I saw when in India were due to overloading. One I can still remember very clearly:

Truck loaded with grain filled to the capacity of the tarpaulin laid over the back - imagine an oak tree with the truck as the trunk and the load as the branches and leaves. Very common to see 2 or 3 foot overhang on the sides and six or more foot in height. One truck was clipped by a bus - caving in the drivers side of the bus and causing the load to dump onto the road. Bus was off the road and into a tree, a following truck had launched itself over the ramp made by the grain pile and was on its side on the other side of the road.

Another factor in the casualty figures is that India is a very big country with many very rural areas and a very limited medical service; don't expect an ambulance to turn up, so many will die from more minor injuries that would easily be treated in first world countries.