Flashing amber or red lights at designated pedestrian crossings could alert drivers and improve safety, similar to warnings at highway black spots
Supreme Court has now issued notice to Centre on its failure to publish even basic road traffic accident statistics for 2025. The case of a 59-year-old woman who fell fatally into a water-filled pit near Chennai’s Anna Nagar Tower Metro station in Aug highlights the plight of the pedestrian. Nothing has apparently changed since a school teacher, Sarala, fell into a pit in T Nagar in 2011 and died. A 2020 paper published in the Journal of Transportation Safety and Security some time ago, based on the road accident database for Tamil Nadu, shows that there are distinct risk features that pedestrians can insist upon being addressed on priority. In proportional terms, 94% of 1.04 lakh incidents. The posted speed limit of 30kmph to 40kmph made no difference, as more than nine of 10 accidents took place at these marked locations. Traffic police forces are already under orders from Supreme Court to set up digital enforcement systems under Section 136A of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988 and Rule 167A of the Central Motor Vehicles Rules, 1988 on national and state highways and in urban areas.
What priorities can captive pedestrians (those who are forced to walk for economic reasons or due to lack of choice) set for themselves to raise their safety both from vehicular and other environmental dangers?
Even the head of the newly-constituted statutory National Road Safety Board, Nitin Gokarn, said recently at a top-level conference that pedestrians and two-wheeler users were ‘highly exposed’ to unsafe speeds, and called for stronger attention to pedestrian infrastructure. the police said the cause of the death could be determined only after a post-mortem Although the pit was there for everyone to see. The single biggest cause for pedestrian crashes is speed according to the paper that uses data for eight years.
G Ananthakrishnan Pedestrian rights activism is on a high in recent times and Supreme Court order asserting the fundamental right to walk under the Constitution has come as a boost. But the lived reality is harrowing for walkers on city roads and along highways. Govt agencies have not budged an inch to make room for pedestrians. Roads continue to be widened to make room for cars at their expense. The law on pedestrian right-of-way at designated crossings is only in the books. There are many barriers to measuring the problem fully. Statistics are skewed on incidents involving pedestrians. The FIR records road crashes involving fatalities or serious injuries, while ignoring the environment in which the incident took place. Non-recording of pedestrian-related incidents in which the injury is minor is the norm. The contributory role played by road-owning agencies such as municipal corporations, municipalities, highways and electricity utilities is not analysed to fix the cause of crashes. When pedestrians fall and suffer broken bones, it is often the result of governmental indifference. Many are hit-and-run cases. Roads with two-way traffic and highways (including those passing through urban areas) contribute the majority of pedestrian crashes. Good weather and good road conditions were associated with most crashes. Just over half the incidents took place in daylight, underscoring pedestrian visibility in low light as a key priority. Enforcing speed curbs in built areas is the easiest intervention to increase safety. such as strong rumble strips and warning flashers, this is absent in densely populated urban roads where there is a tendency to speed While many highways are incorporating speed-reduction devices at black spots. Highways passing through cities do not have these rumble strips, apparently to favour VIP movements. Chennai’s Inner Ring Road is an example. Visibility contributes to safety. Industrial laws require safety features at workplace sites, such as high visibility clothing and reflective bands, but road safety in India has not taken this on board. Pedestrians are also not sensitised to this. Yet, the big online marketplaces sell a wide variety of passive and active pedestrian and biking safety devices, such as reflective arm bands, jackets, vests, clip-on reflectors, LED torches and LED batons. These could elevate safety majorly in dark areas where vehicles tend to speed. Such wearables are distributed in Africa by some automakers to schoolgoing children, a particularly vulnerable group in India too. Incidentally, such low cost interventions work even in daylight, enhancing the safety of older adults and children in particular. Traffic police can help by installing flashing amber or red lights at designated pedestrian crossings, similar to highway black spots, to warn drivers. High intensity lighting over the crossing can aid drivers. Enforcement is a more important dimension. Automatic recording of wayward drivers’ number plates through CCTV can bring about better compliance. They have apparently not taken this seriously.
Recent delayed construction of storm water drains in Chennai and the ongoing Chennai Metro Rail phase 2 work have made things worse. The audit of four biggest Tamil Nadu cities conducted under the directions of the SC committee on road safety, and cited by IIT Delhi’s TRIP Centre India Status Report on Road Safety 2024, says only 38% of roads had footpaths of expected length, only 50% had footpaths of IRC-mandated width and 26% met IRC footpath height standards. Because vehicles move in all directions, while those on foot are usually resigned to pick their way around parked cars, two-wheelers, large bunk shops and electricity pillars occupying the entire footpath along busy roads, they are helpless at junction splays. Because vIP road users including bureaucrats rarely use footpaths and have chauffeured cars, evidently, no one in authority takes IRC standards seriously, perhaps.
In the urban jungle and along dangerous highways, the motto should be ‘Be seen, be safe.’ (The writer is a Chennai-based journalist) You Can Also Check: Gold Rate in Chennai | Silver Rate in Chennai | Bank Holidays in Chennai | Public Holidays in Chennai | Chennai AQI | Weather in Chennai | Petrol Price in Chennai | Diesel Price in Chennai | CNG Price in Chennai | LPG Price in Chennai Stay updated with the latest Chennai news. A key site of pedestrian risk is the road intersection, where the splay area at the four corners is usually either obstructed or remains decrepit to the point of being non-existent. CMRL has not created uniform walking access paths in the work areas, with no negative consequences in spite of legal orders protecting pedestrian rights. Indian Roads Congress (IRC) standards for pedestrian crossings require one crosswalk to be available every 80m to 250m in residential areas, and 80m to 150m in commercial areas. Pedestrian access along roads in Chennai, Coimbatore, Trichy and Madurai, the four cities assessed, and those elsewhere has taken a turn for the worse, with large scale construction activity at the cost of footpaths. The Tamil Nadu road accident database shows the majority of crashes involving pedestrians happened on footpaths, pedestrian crossings and road shoulders. These should be fixed in mission mode. The indifference of Greater Chennai, Avadi, Tambaram corporations, the many suburban municipalities and Tamil Nadu highways to the law and lack of meaningful road infrastructure-building has put the onus on walkers to protect themselves. Remaining highly visible is a good start. Download the TOI App.