INDIAN INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY DELHI

Dinesh Mohan

Traffic Safety Principles

“Action in the absence of

knowledge can be dangerous

and worse than no action at all”

M. K. Gandhi

Magnitude of the problem in India

~4 %

~6 %

~8 %

> 400 persons killed every day ~ 1,200 permanently disabled every day ~ 8,000 hospitalised everyday

NO RELIABLE OFFICIAL STATISTICS AVAILABLE ON:

FATALITIES BY ROAD USER TYPE

VEHICLES INVOLVED

NUMBER DISABLED

NUMBER INJURED

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IRAN

USA

JAPAN

MEXICOEGYPT

THAILAND

FATALITIES/100,000 PERSONSWHO ESTIMATES 2013

INDIA

Philosophy and science of safety changed

dramatically ~50 years ago

OLD IDEAS

Road Vehicle

Driver

3/4/5 E’s

85% of accidents are caused by the driver

NO DATA NEEDED!

Just Educate & Punish Them

6

Paradigm Shift

Traffic Death Rates in OECD countries

Source: Kavi Bhalla

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1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 2020

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Number fatalities

Estimated No. of Vehicles(Millions)

History Lesson - USA

First

committees

NHTSA

Education, licensing &

strict finesVehicle + Road Design

+Focused enforcement

No Nation Successful Without Independent Road Safety Agency

Staffed by Scientists With Permanent Jobs

Committees & Advisory Councils Unsucceessful

Deaths

Vehicles

The reduction in accidents in all these modes after 1965 is probably not due to any single factor in isolation

Due to a wide variety of improvements: design of vehicles/technology operating environment and infrastructure enforcement of safety regulations and

standards

What changed 1900-1960 and 1960-2000?

Change in Philosophy

A move from focus on blaming people, hectoring people, ‘educating’ them, punishing them

Treating people as ‘normal’ & focusing on the system

Finding one

person at fault,

punishing,

education

Finding all

reasons,

improving

whole system

Basic systems approach/Haddon’s matrix

Space

Time

Human (Victim)

Products Environ-

ment

Crash Prevention

Role of the human

beings in preventing

the event

Role of the

product in

preventing the

event

Role of laws,

policing, &

environment in

preventing the

event

Injury Prevention during crash

Role, changes in

victim in minimizing

injury during crash

Design changes in

product to

minimize injury

during crash

Changes in laws,

policing, &

environment

Injury Management after crash

Management of

victim to minimize

effect of injury

Design changes in

product to

minimize after

effects

Societal and

environmental

arrangements

Basic systems approach/Haddon’s matrix

Changes in road infrastructure

What to do with people

Changes in vehicle designHow to prevent

accidents?

Policies

Standards

Policing

Institutions

Driver training, public education, fining drivers

disobeying traffic rules, especially speeding,

zig-zag driving, checking alcohol

Better headlights, High rear brake lights

Reflectors on trucks, buses, tractors, NMTVs

Speed governors, Electronic stability control

Automatic emergency braking

ABS and combined breaks on 2-wheelers

Daytime headlights on 2-wheelrs

Provision of footpaths>2m, Bicycle lanes

Traffic calming, Use of roundabouts, Small

blocks in cities.

No raised medians on divided highways,

Scientific signage and road markings visible at

night, Red light cameras, Speed cameras, High

illumination at junctions

Basic systems approach/Haddon’s matrix

Changes in road infrastructure

What to do with people

Changes in vehicle designHow to preventinjuries during an accident?

Policies

Standards

Policing

Institutions

Use of helmets and seat belts

Crashworthiness standards (airbags, etc)

No children in laps, only in back seat/childseats

No pointed or sharp objects inside or outside

No sharp objects/railings/fences on roads

No barbed wire

No trees greater than 10cm dia around high

speed roads

No poles, signs etc on run off area on highways

Basic systems approach/Haddon’s matrix

Changes in road infrastructure

What to do with people

Changes in vehicle design

What to do after the

accident is over?

Policies

Standards

Policing

Institutions

First aid, safe extrication and transfer to

hospital, rehabilitation

No fuel leakage, minimise probability of fire

Information for help and and systems for timely

removal of vehicles

1. Driver training

2. Public education

3. Fining drivers

disobeying traffic

rules, especially

speeding, zig-

zag driving

4. Checking alcohol

5. Use of helmets

and seat belts

Better headlights, High rear brake lights

Reflectors on trucks, buses, tractors, NMTVs

Speed governors, Electronic stability control

Automatic emergency braking

ABS and combined breaks on 2-wheelers

Daytime headlights on 2-wheelrs

Provision of footpaths>2m, Bicycle lanes

Traffic calming, Use of roundabouts, Small blocks in cities.

No raised medians on divided highways, Scientific signage

and road markings visible at night, Red light cameras, Speed

cameras, High illumination at junctions

Crashworthiness standards (airbags, etc)

No children in laps, only in back seat/childseats

No pointed or sharp objects inside or outside

No sharp objects/railings/fences on roads

No barbed wire

No trees greater than 10cm dia around high speed roads

No poles, signs etc on run off area on highways

No fuel leakage, minimise probability of fire

Information for help and and systems for timely removal of

vehicles

OLD

SCIENTIFIC APPROACH

279…Rash and negligent

driving

304…Culpable homicide not

amounting to murder

Car going over the speed

Limit

Motorcyclist not wearing

helmet dies

Bright light at junction

Roundabout

Speed camera

Police presence

Helmet compulsory

SUMMARIES OF STUDIES

There is no clearly proven relationship between

knowledge and attitude on the one hand and

behaviour on the other hand – OECD 1994

Education programs by themselves usually are

insufficient to change behaviour. They may

increase knowledge, but increased knowledge

rarely results in an appropriate behaviour change –

O’Neill 2001

Contrary to the view that education cannot do any

harm some of these programs have been shown to

make matters worse – Sandels 1978

Combination of enforcement and penalties prevent

the violation of traffic regulations and increase road

safety. However, the most common type of penalty at

the present time, a fine, has been found to have little

effect

When subjective probability of detection is

sufficiently high, road users avoid violating a

regulation

Making penalties heavier, as an isolated measure,

has been found to have little extra effect

SWOV Fact sheet...Penalties in traffic. SWOV (Institute for Road Safety Research),

Leidschendam, The Netherlands,January 2009

Effectiveness of fines as deterrents

Facts from successful countries

• Maximum helmet and seatbelt use achieved with – Education: 10-20%

– Scientific enforcement 80-95%

• Maximum reduction in deaths from– Vehicle safety standards

– Traffic calming

– Provision of facilities for pedestrians and bicyclists

– Use of helmets and daytime running lights

– Strict speed control

– Alcohol checking

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Iran

Other

Occupant

Motorcyclist

Bicyclist

Pedestrian

Sample Results

• Interventions for speed control are most

important

• The relative importance of interventions varies

by country

Source Kavi Bhalla

The Zero VisionOctober 1997, Road Traffic Safety Bill, Swedish Parliament

“The scientific basis of the zero vision differs from the usual approach to safety in human-machine systems: designing a system to minimize the number of events that cause injury. Instead, the zero vision is based on the notion of "allowing" these incidents to occur, but at a level of violence that does not threaten life or long-term health”

“In the zero vision, the entire transport system must be designed to accommodate the individual who has the worst protection and the lowest tolerance of violence. No event must be allowed to generate a level of violence that is so high that it represents an unacceptable loss of health for that vulnerable individual.”

“The responsibility for every death or loss of health in the road transport system rests with the person responsible for the design of that system. This is the ethical basis for realizing the zero vision.”

CLAES TINGVALL

Traffic fatality rates in cities with populations of at least one million, 2006 and 2016

Source: NCRB Increase 2-5 times in many cities

Fatalities per million persons – states and UT

“Culture” does not seem to be a determining factor

Truck7%

Bus1%Car

4%

TSR3%

MTW41%

Cycle12%

Pedestrians32%

Vadodara

Truck6%

Bus3%

Car2%

TSR2%

MTW37%

Cycle9%

Pedestrians41%

Agra

Pedestrian79%

Bicycle7%

Motorizedtwo-wheeler

7%

3-wheelerscooter

rickshaw4%

Car2%

Bus0%

Truck1%

Mumbai(1996-1997)

Assumption - occupants per vehicle per dayMTW-4 TSR-60 Car-7

Mohan, D, Tiwari, G, Mukherjee, S 2013

“Illegal” speed humps on roads through

villages in India – construction forced by

villagers

Safety without increase in per capita

income or “education”

Pedestrian crossings raised 10 cm

above road level

“speed humps

were associated

with a 53% to 60%

reduction in the

odds of injury or

death among

children struck by

an automobile in

their

neighborhood”

American Journal of

Public Health, April 2004

Tanzania

Tanzania

Tanzania

Tanzania

Tanzania

Tanzania

Tanzania

Tanzania

Tanzania

Tanzania

Tanzania

Tanzania

Tanzania

Tanzania

SERIOUS PROBLEMS: FEW EXAMPLES

Raised Medians on Highways

High Speeds on Highways Going Through Habited Areas

Guardrails Behind Raised Curbs

Increase in Speed Limits to 120 km/h

Wide Differentials Between Commercial And Car Speed Limits

Planting Trees in Runoff Areas of High Speed Roads

Slip Roads at Junctions on Urban Areas

Free Left Turns at Traffic Lights

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THE DECADE

Appoint a professionally staffed (with

permanent jobs (engineers, statisticians,

physicists, psychologists, etc) Agency for road

safety. It must be independent of the road

building department. At maturity – say 10 years

– it must employ >500 professionals around

the country.

Set appropriate road safety targets based on

interventions.

Fund research and training and establish at

least 10 Centres for research in academic

institutions