Last year, Zoomcar, India’s biggest self-drive rental car company, surveyed 22 cities using its proprietary drive scoring system and declared Mysuru had the worst drivers in the country!
Based on yesterday’s SOM report, the survey’s assessment seems right. The report stated that in just five months of the Mysuru-Bengaluru Expressway opening, there have been 570 accidents where 55 people have died, 52 were seriously injured, 187 suffered fractures and 279 sustained minor injuries! It’s not the faulty road; it’s an issue of faulty drivers.
The problem of bad drivers begins at the RTO level. In 2017, ‘Save a Life Foundation,’ a well-respected NGO committed to improving road safety, surveyed ten major cities in India. They wanted to know how many people got their driver’s licence (DL) without a driving test.
What is the result of the survey? 59 percent. Yes, almost 60 percent of the drivers in our country’s major cities have got a driver’s licence without a proper driving test! Is it any surprise, then, that most of us are unsafe drivers?
There is a direct correlation between corruption at RTOs in issuing driver’s licences and bad drivers leading to death on Indian roads. It has also become a sociological problem as it introduces young minds to bribing their way to success. When a 16-year-old gets his learner’s licence (LLR), in most cases, he also earns a learner’s licence on how to bribe.
This driver’s licence corruption, which has led to an increased number of bad drivers and, in turn, deaths on Indian roads, prompted Harvard Business School to do a study titled ‘Obtaining a Driver’s Licence in India: An experimental approach to studying corruption.’ One of the conclusions was that 62 percent of Indian drivers were unqualified to drive when they obtained a licence!
Mysuru is growing, and it’s time to prepare, not just the roads but also its drivers. First, the RTO needs to conduct two tests — one for city driving and one for highway driving. Considering there have been so many deaths on the Expressway to Bengaluru, it is crucial.
Most drivers in India are unaware of many aspects of driving, such as ‘blind spots’ and lane discipline. Mysuru drivers must learn lane discipline — Stick to your side and not slither on the road like a snake from one side of the road to another. When you have no lane discipline, no matter how big a road you are given, it will never be enough.
That said, there are a few issues with the Mysuru-Bengaluru Expressway, such as the Government’s inability to maintain impenetrable side walls, have continuous service lanes to park vehicles that have broken, and the failure to ban two-wheelers and autorickshaws which hinder lane discipline.
There is also the issue of patrolling and keeping the Expressway clear at all times. Already we see coconut sellers on the Expressway, people stopping on the outer lane to take pictures, and young boys doing motorcycle stunts. There is no Police patrolling to stop these dangerous activities.
I was recently in Sri Lanka. They, too, have an Expressway connecting Colombo and a city called Galle. On this Expressway, no autorickshaws and motorcycles are allowed. All cars and buses must maintain a speed limit of 100 km per hour, plus or minus 15 km. Drivers are fined if they go above and also below this speed range.
They also have a separate department in the Police force to handle the Expressway issues. This includes an Accident Response Team. We are yet to put such systems in place. But that doesn’t mean the road is faulty; our drivers are not well-trained to drive on an Expressway, and that’s the issue.
The Mysuru-Bengaluru Expressway was designed for an average speed of about 100 kilometres per hour, and the width of each lane was designed for that speed, but none of the cars follow that. Worse, we lack lane discipline, a big problem on an Expressway where vehicles move at high speeds.
As per the Report on Road Accidents in India 2019, over 24,431 road accidents occurred due to lack of lane discipline, and over 9,201 deaths happened due to overtaking and when changing lanes. We Mysureans should be aware of this as we will drive a lot on the new Expressway and at high speeds where lane discipline becomes crucial.
We have a culture that has complete disregard for our safety and others, too — from getting up before a flight comes to a complete halt to hopping onto a moving train; from driving up a one-way street to driving between lanes on the Expressway; from making kids pop their heads out of the sunroof to not wearing seatbelts, we never pay attention to safety.
Senior Police Officer and now CBI Director Praveen Sood said, “What is in the public interest may not always be what the public is interested in.” He is right. Here is an example. Seat belts are compulsory, and new cars keep ‘beeping’ if you are not wearing your seat belt to remind you to wear it for your own safety.
But the unwillingness of drivers and co-passengers to wear seat belts has given rise to a new business opportunity — the buckle market. Shops are now selling just the buckle, which is ‘clicked’ in to shut the beep up!
It is said to drive on Indian roads, you need ‘Good Horn, Good Brakes and Good Luck.’ This is true, but for now, as accidents and deaths rise on the Mysuru-Bengaluru Expressway, the need of the hour is a better driver’s test and a non-corrupt licence-issuing system, else the Expressway will be an Expressway to go straight to heaven, hell or worse… a greedy hospital.
e-mail: vikram@starofmysore.com
This post was published on June 10, 2023 7:05 pm