The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways and International Road Federation (IRF) are planning to use social networking websites including Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to help reduce fatal accidents by 50 percent in the next three years.
The sole concept behind using these tools is to generate mass awareness about road safety and the ministry will use traditional media (i.e. advertising, billboards, posters) as well as new media to spread the awareness (source).
While all this may sound forward looking, the bigger question is whether the ministry is doing enough to manage the road infrastructure (traffic management systems)?
As per International Road Federation, India accounts for ~10% of the million-plus fatal accidents in the world each year. With 130,000 deaths last year, India tops in the number of people killed in road accidents, surpassing China’s 90,000. And, most of these deaths occurred due to bad road designs and lack of proper traffic management systems to separate different streams of traffic – source
Do you see a reason to embrace the new media when the government has not even sorted out the infrastructural challenge?
Related: Twitter in India – People Use it as a News Service [Survey Report] | Watch out Orkut – PM Manmohan Singh is on Facebook (and so are other celebrities)
Your source for ‘most of these deaths occurred due to bad road designs and lack of proper traffic management systems to separate different streams of traffic’ are not leading to the right source.
We work on pre-hospital care, and the claim that ‘bad road designs’ are the number one killer, doesn’t seem right. Yea, agree that it is indeed a pertinent cause, but not the major killer.
Responsibility on part of the drivers is also equally important and hence investment on awareness seems justified.
Having said that, it is sad to note that the entire road infrastructure, traffic system in India is made primarily for big vehicles ..though the majority of road accident victims are pedestrians and two wheelers.
Dude, if bad road design and overcrowded cities are not the primary reasons for road accident according to you ( No matter what your research says), you seriously need to visit some countries with good road design and similar population density like Tokyo to get your facts right. Stop claiming logic & research just to counter a simple reality!!
@Arjun
I would rather claim logic and research than being emotional. Our nature of work demands that dude
. FYI, see how WHO summmarizes the causation of RTI deaths. Each one of those are pertinent and has to be dealt with seriously. I was not undermining the imp. of road infrastructure, but was merely pointing that the investment in public awareness is also equally justified. Thx.
The WHO report on road traffic injury prevention has
outlined four sets of risk factors contributing to RTIs (WHO
2004a). These are
(i) factors related to exposure (economic
and demographic factors; land-use planning practices; mix
of motorized and non-motorized traffic; and lack of focus
on integrating road functions with speed, design and
layout),
(ii) factors influencing crash involvement (excessive
speed; use of alcohol and drugs; young male; being vulnerable road users (VRUs); poor visibility; vehicle factors and poor
eyesight of the road user),
(iii) factors influencing severity
of the crash (human tolerance; high speed; non-usage of
seat belts; non-usage of helmets; presence of objects on
the road; consumption of alcohol; and insufficient vehicle
protection against crash), and
(iv) factors influencing the
severity of post-crash injuries (inadequate prehospital and
emergency care; deficient trauma care in care facilities
and delays in care).