Each year nearly 1.3 million people die due to a road traffic collision
Road safety is increasingly becoming a major killer and a worldwide concern. Many people look at road safety as non-essential, but this is a major topic of accidents occurring every minute nowadays.
Road accidents are a global tragedy with the ever-rising trend. According to the "Global Status Report on Road Safety - Time for Action", each year nearly 1.3 million people die due to a road traffic collision—more than 3000 deaths each day—and more than half of these people are not traveling in a car. Twenty to fifty million more people sustain non-fatal injuries from a collision, and these injuries are an important cause of disability worldwide.
Ninety percent of road traffic deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries, which claim less than half the world's registered vehicle fleet. Road traffic injuries are among the three leading causes of death for people between 5 and 44 years of age (Melchor et al., 2015).
Road safety is the anticipation and protection of road accidents by using all the road safety measures. It is to protect people while traveling on the roads. It is to make all road users safe such as pedestrians, two-wheelers, four-wheelers, multi-wheelers, and other transport vehicle users.
Committed road safety measures are very good and safe to all people throughout the life. Everyone should respect others while driving or walking on the road and take care of their safety. People's safety on the road is one of the most important aspects of avoiding roadside accidents, injury, and death.
We can judge the significance of road safety based on national statistical data about total reported accidents and death. Almost 42% of cases involve pedestrians and one-way road users.
A driver should be careful not to break the road safety rules and maintain the road safety culture to avoid these. The main reason for accidents is high-speed driving. Many people are killed, left seriously injured in road accidents. Drivers must be well-educated regarding road safety & what to do, what not to do. Police officers have a key role in encouraging improved road-user behavior.
The main causes of car accidents according to Kuruvilla, G., & Saud, J. (2017) are driver distractions, drunken drivers, using cellular phones while driving, speeding, aggressive driving, mechanical failure, road conditions, and weather. Lack of discipline of the driver, refusal to follow traffic rules, lack of experience, and licensing older drivers also may be a cause of these accidents
Road accidents involving children have become a major cause of concern around the world. In recent times, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of road accidents involving children. Accidents are generally classified as single vehicle and multiple vehicle accidents. The rise in the number of road accidents is closely linked with the rapid growth of population, economic development, industrialization, and motorization encountered by the country.
It continues to be a growing concern to all those who use the roads. There are many other causes of accidents on the road. One reason is that nowadays, people can obtain licenses easily. But actually, people who want to get the license must have experience and know the rules on the road. However, we do not have many experienced drivers on the road.
However, traffic laws may prevent these kinds of accidents, but it is still up to the driver to follow the road safety rules and maintain a road safety culture.
Defensive driving involves the driver thinking ahead about possible safety concerns or other issues while driving. Defensive drivers are not distracted, do not talk or text on their cell phones, and concentrate fully on driving. It is vital for drivers to be familiar with the road rules and strictly adhere to these rules.
Additionally, it is important for pedestrians to know the rules of the road and to act accordingly. Pedestrians should always use marked crosswalks and only cross the road when it is safe to do so. Parents should take care to educate their children as pedestrians and future motorists. Adults should always set an excellent example as motorists and take care to wear their seat belts and be courteous to other drivers on the road.
There have been many rules and regulations introduced to promote road safety in the country. However, many of these have not seen much success at the grass-root level.
We can improve road safety and management (Kuruvilla, 2021) in the following ways:
- Receiving road safety education at the right time
- Conducting awareness program for people
- Organizational rules and coordination of activities
- Implementation of Technology on the roads can help us have a safe and smoother public transit service.
UN General Assembly resolution 64/2551 of March 2010 proclaimed 2011–2020 the Decade of Action for road safety, with a global goal of stabilizing and then reducing the forecasted level of global road fatalities by increasing activities conducted at national, regional, and global levels.