19 highlights
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“We woke up one day to find a speed breaker had come up on this street overnight. There was no marking, no signs, no lights. That morning, a few milkmen and paperwallahs fell and injured themselves. Then an old man on a Scooty came, bumped, flew in the air and died. Died.”
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India has 1% of the world’s vehicles but records 11% of its accidents. That’s the highest in the world.
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In 2018, 1.5 lakh people died on the roads. Overspeeding was the biggest culprit; it caused 6.3 lakh accidents and killed nearly one lakh people that year.
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In a country with poor road design, a lack of enforcement of laws, a corrupt or inadequately staffed traffic police and a near-total neglect of pedestrians’ needs, speed breakers seem to offer a quick-fix for all that ails us.
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In 2015, the government told Parliament that 11,084 people lost their lives in 2015 due to “faulty and non-standardized speed breakers”. That’s nearly 30 people a day.
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An average speed breaker is supposed to be 3.7 m wide, 0.1 m tall and is designed to reduce the vehicular speed to 25-30 kmph in urban areas. It’s not a semi-circle that one encounters most often—it’s supposed to have a steady ramp, a flat top and a steady fall.
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The high court order applied to all of Maharashtra. Armed with it, Velankar went after the Pune Municipal Corporation to carry out a similar drive in the city. “They removed almost 95% speed breakers at the time,” he recalls. It was a rare victory for civil society. The joy didn’t last long.
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Slowly, the speed breakers began coming back. “I realized that the local residents and corporators work in connivance,” says Velankar. “Find a contractor at a local construction site, pay him a few thousands, and get a speed breaker put on the road overnight. There’s no question of signs, science or stripes.”
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Speed breakers are a cynical concept. They assume that a driver isn’t cognizant of her surroundings, and needs something to temper her risky behaviour. Besides, they are meant for the most ignored person on a road: the pedestrian. There isn’t, and can never be, a moral argument against them.
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But speed breakers are meant to be the last resort for calming traffic. If there’s a high number of them in your area, it is an indictment of a system and its people.
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In 2011, Jin Huiqing, a doctor from China, made headlines for proposing just that. His idea: treat bad driving as a disease and find ways to fix it.
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Between 6% and 8% of drivers were repeat offenders. They were responsible for 40% crashes involving more than one car. He narrowed them to “accident-prone” drivers, or those who caused three or more accidents in five years. This set was put through a battery of tests which revealed that their levels of two neurotransmitters—dopamine and serotonin—were significantly lower than in “safe” drivers. They also displayed lower levels of depth perception and night vision and higher risk-taking tendencies.
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Based on his findings, Jin Huiqing put together the “Three Lines of Defence” technique for China’s roads. Under this, a person is put through a series of physical and psychological tests to determine her driving ability. Those found “accident-prone” would be trained using simulators to address their specific shortcomings.
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The technique has its share of sceptics. Public data from China is often unreliable. Experts also say the findings of the studies are too uncertain. Besides, Jin Huiqing’s Anhui Sanlian Group, a $4 million firm that employs over 2,000 people, is a for-profit. There’s always a chance of them exaggerating their findings to present a rosy picture.
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The reasoning is that Indians have scant regard for public amenities. How else does one explain the Tejas Express vandalism, the graffiti at historical monuments, the paan-stained walls of office complexes or the endless littering of public spaces?
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But if Indians are poor road users, it’s often because Indian roads offer a poor user experience. “If you go to London, you drive as Londoners,”
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To respect the system, one must get the sense that the system respects you.
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The Delhi Metro offers comfortable, air-conditioned rides. It doesn’t differentiate between the rich and the poor. In return, it expects you to be mindful of the facilities it provides. There are stiff penalties for violators. No one’s spared.
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In the latest set of guidelines issued in 2018, the IRC recommended that speed humps be allowed on highways. They didn’t have a choice, says Nirmal. Across the country, houses and markets have sprung up around highways. Often, new roads cut through existing towns and cities, putting the locals at risk of high-speed traffic. In many cases, locals took matters into their own hands and made speed breakers on the highways.