From the Editors Desk
Road Safety
The road accident scenario in the country is a matter of
great concern. Despite low rate of vehicle ownership,
we have a very high accident rate. In the year 2010,
nearly 1.30 lakh lives are lost and about 5.2 lakh
persons got injured in accidents. The number of injured
may be much more, as there is under reporting of road
accidents. Accident victims, in general, prefer to settle
the claims of accidents without reporting to the police.
The number of accident fatalities is increasing every
year due to over speeding on all categories of roads,
lack of access control on high speed function roads i.e.
NHs, overloading of commercial vehicles, inadequate
signage and markings, lack of accident analysis to
bring out cause of accidents and non-implementation
of corrective measures at accident sites.
In most industrialized countries, Road Safety is now
seen as an important responsibility of Road Authorities
and many countries now require their Road Authorities
to be pro-active in reducing the number of deaths and
injuries on the road networks under their control. This
is often done as a part of efforts to achieve National
targets in casualty or death reduction. For example, UK
places statutory responsibility on all its road authorities
(at National, County and Municipal level) to improve
road safety on their road network. This requires them
to analyse accident data, to identify accident, trends
to identify road users at risk, to eliminate accident
black spots etc. at each level and then to develop
and implement appropriate counter measures to
improve safety on their road networks. In each
U.K. Road Engineering Department, there are small
Road Safety Units who work full time on road safety
issues. They usually have their own staff and earmarked
budgets for implementing safety improvement schemes
and are required to produce an Annual Road Safety
Plan indicating how they intend to improve road safety.
Central Govt. offers incentives by part financing some
of the improvement schemes to encourage activity
in this area. Govts. of Australia, Germany, Sweden,
Denmark, USA and many other industrialized countries
also engage full time Specialists to address Engineering
2 INDIAN HIGHWAYS, May 2012
Safety Issues. The specific arrangements vary slightly
country to country but basically, all developing countries
now recognize the need to have small specialist
teams of professionals, working full time within road
authorities on road safety issues. This approach of
Specialist Safety Units at different levels of Road
Authorities has proved highly effective in reducing
road deaths in industrialized countries and is well
worth considering in India.
The reliable accident data base is a crucial element in
the management of road safety. In First Information
Reports (FIR) available with police department,
particular features of fatal road accidents like exact
location of accident, date and time of accident, persons
killed or injured, vehicles involved etc. are readily
available. The available information in the FIR
report of an accident is the starting point for accident
analysis. To be of value, the accident report should
include statement of witnesses and drivers involved
in accident, information describing the accident and
its victims, the events leading up to the accident and
information regarding road features at the accident
location. It is essential to have easy availability of
accident data for safety improvement and for this to
happen, the Road Authorities should have a close
working relationship with the local police. This will
help to ensure prompt and ready access to the database,
and the Road Authority can in turn help validate the
data by preliminary site visits. IRC has recently
revised IRC:53-1982 Road Accident Form A-1
and 4. There is a need to make use of these forms
and send feedback to IRC for further improvements
in accident data collection.
The data available with the police needs to be transferred
on to the Accident Form. The Accident Investigator
should visit the accident site and note down the site
details about the location, type of junction, type of road
surface, statement of locals, history of road accidents,
vehicles involved in road accidents etc. While being
at the site, the engineer should first observe traffic for
15-20 minutes to see if drivers seem to be facing any
problem or if they are making illegal maneuvers. This
 EDITORIAL
may give insight into the problems that exists at that
location. The different steps in accident analysis are as
follows:
Stick diagrams can be used by an investigator as a
simple visual way of displaying each accident to assist
the search for common patterns of accidents. This
technique offers the user the facility to view group
of accidents. This helps the accident investigator to
visualize the factors in the accidents and then grouping
these sticks in a particular way (e.g. by time of day),
patterns in the accidents can often be discovered,
hopefully identifying some underlying causes. Stick
diagram analysis can be used easily with the help of
computer softwares.
Collision diagrams can be prepared at each site by
drawing a site plan, marking direction of movement
and points of conflict of vehicles involved in accidents.
The most important use of collision diagram is to
provide a starting point for the classification of each
road accident into cluster or group. Accident patterns
seen on collision diagram can often suggest possible
accident problems. For example, a large number of
angle accidents would imply the potential of a sight
distance restriction.
Preliminary site visit: The site visit is a very important
element of accident investigation to familiarize the
investigator with the site conditions, checking whether
available plans are up-to-date, visualizing the recorded
accident and helps to identify contributory road features,
for example, sight lines, street furniture, road surface
condition etc. It may be necessary to make visits at
different times of day (e.g. peak hours, darkness or wet
condition) in accordance with factors revealed in the
stick diagram.
It is well known that road accidents tend to cluster
together at certain locations, commonly termed
accident blackspots. At such sites, it is likely that
some aspects of improper highway design and layout,
poor condition of road, improper traffic control or
lack of sight distance may be the contributory factors
in most accident occurrences. Blackspot treatment is
likely to be the most needed starting point with the road
authorities. From the information gathered at blackspot
study, remedial measures are designed and implemented.
Many developed countries accord priority to elimination
Comments on this Editorial is invited and may be sent by E-mail: secretarygen@irc.org.in
INDIAN HIGHWAYS, May 2012 3
of blackspots from road networks. All strategies rely on
the availability of data which contains full information
about accidents and their locations so that common
features, which have contributed to the accidents, can
be identified. Accident data and use of collision and
stick diagrams are the key analysis tools for the traffic
engineer. Annual Road Safety plan needs to target
reduction in number of blackspots. As a consequence,
it has been well established that considerable safety
benefits may result from the application of appropriate
road engineering or traffic management measures, which
are called accident counter measures. Simple measures
can significantly reduce accident problems at such
sites. For example, the use of road signs and markings
to channelize traffic through complex junctions, or to
provide safe waiting areas for turning vehicles and
reduction in conflict points, can often result in substantial
reduction in number of accidents. If countermeasures
are not taken then accidents continue to be repeated
over a period of time at a same spot again and again.
Recently, information on blackspots was collected by
the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways. These
are accident spots where road fatalities are in double
digits. There is a need to study the accident reports and
carry out inspection of sites. It is very much possible
to identify the corrective measures to be taken for the
complete elimination of these blackspots. Accidents
are complex events and many factors must usually
combine for an accident to occur. Even at blackspots,
accidents are rare events. The great majority of the
millions of vehicles a year, passing through a particular
junction, do so safely but it happens only occasionally
that a particular set of contributory factors combine for
an accident to occur. Reducing the number of decisions
that drivers make at any one time, simplifies the driving
task and help drivers to move in safety and comfort with
minimum number of conflicts with other road users.
For the safety of road users, its high time to associate
educational institutions, consultants and concerned
traffic police with highway engineers to carry out
accident analysis and to take remedial measures so that
trend in road accidents are reversed.
(Arun Kumar Sharma)
Secretary General