The Pune District Road Safety Committee conducted a comprehensive inspection of black spots within Pune city. A "black spot" is defined as a 500-meter stretch of road that has witnessed either five or more fatal vehicle crashes or ten or more severe injuries in the past three years.

In line with the directives from the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH), all state and union territory governments have been urged to prioritize measures for rectifying these black spots to mitigate road crash fatalities. In this regard, the Maharashtra State Government has identified 34 black spots within the Pune Municipal Corporation area and 19 black spots within the Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation area.

Seat belts are one of the basics of car safety. It is a legal requirement for the driver and all passengers to wear a seat belt in India as per Motor Vehicles (Amendment), Act 2019. However, considerable misunderstanding prevails among the vehicle users that not all passengers but only drivers are legally required to wear a seat belt. This is largely due to lack of enforcement on the ground. 

A recent survey by Parisar in Maharashtra about use of  seatbelts among all occupants of the vehicle reported startling results. It revealed that almost 43% wore seat belts while 47% did not wear seat belts while driving vehicles. It is interesting to note that survey findings across 4 major cities and among vehicle occupants (driver, co-passenger, and rear passengers) varies dramatically. While Pune does well in terms of seat belt compliance (76%), other 3 cities have shown pathetic results, Kolhapur has compliance rate 28%.

A survey carried out by Parisar in February 2019 in Pimpri Chinchwad area which covered total 3950 (3195 single riders and 755 double riders) showed the usage of helmets at 38%, a shocking indicator of how callously road safety is adhered to.

Abstract:

Morbidity and mortality due to road traffic injuries (RTI) is one of the few public health problems where society and decision makers still accept death and disability on such a large scale as inevitable. Discussion only revolves around the number of deaths and injuries we are willing to accept. The partial departure from this mode of thinking is ‘Vision Zero’ for road safety that was adopted by the Swedish parliament in 1997. The long-term objective is that no one shall be killed or seriously injured in traffic and that the design, function and use of the transport system shall be adapted to the standards this requires. In this article we try to understand the concept of RTI as a public health problem and why that understanding has led to the introduction of Vison Zero and then sporadic attempts to establish road safety as a fundamental human right. We provide some details surrounding these events, the reasons for their limited success, and suggest ways in how we might move forward in establishing a place for rights and obligations to ensure road safety in reality.