Bharat Rakshak

Well, a farm is a confined place. I don't think we have the right to force animals to do whatever we please. We are already doing so. Maybe we should control our urge to believe that all resources of this planet belongs to our baap and we have the right to pontificate on what other species should and shouldn't do.

How about reducing pollution in cities? hain?

First of all, we have the chutzpah to pollute the environment, which affects other species. And then, we enforce more conditions on animals to protect them from its consequences. sahi hai.

Ya'Allah...why did you allow the creation of Salman Taseer University of Higher-order lahori Logic.

There is a consensus on the terms and conditions for ownership of property and value of labor among human beings (not animals). We just displaced animals from where they used to live. We expect them to follow rules made by us which are overwhelmingly in our favor.

In the automotive sector parlance, passive safety features refer to systems designed to minimise injury to the occupants in the event of a crash as against active safety systems that help drivers avoid accidents. It is important to equip a vehicle with both active and passive safety features.

The Automotive Industry in India has been one of the key drivers of economic growth, with a CAGR of over 15% during the last 7 years. In 2010-11, the total turnover of the Industry stood at USD 73 Billion(Rs. 3,27,300 cr.) and its contribution to the Manufacturing GDP and the excise duty was 22% and 21% respectively. Today, India is the largest manufacturer of tractors, second largest manufacturer of two wheelers, 5th largest manufacturer of commercial vehicles and is an emerging global automotive hub. The Indian automotive sector is now widely recognized for its enormous potential to be a growth engine and propel the country on a high growth path.

While the growth story, both in retrospect and prospect, sounds impressive and exciting, it also poses several areas of concern and challenges. Increasing urbanization and motorization, rapid development of road infrastructure, introduction of faster vehicles and the changing driving pattern have brought to the fore the problem of increasing number of injuries and mortalities resulting from road traffic accidents. As per an estimate, about 125,000 people die and 450,000 get injured in India every year due to Road Traffic accidents.

Road Traffic Accident which used to be the tenth among the top ten causes of mortality in the country two decades back, is projected to occupy the fifth position in the list of major killers in the year 2020. Some of the factors that increase the risk of road crashes in India are unsafe traffic environment, poor road infrastructure, increasing number of motorized vehicles, lack of safety engineering measures and unsafe driving behaviour. Improving prevention and mitigation of road traffic incidents in a low-income country like India will help to better use its scarce resources.

Road Safety is a multi-sectoral and multi-dimensional issue encompassing the development and management of road infrastructure, design of safer vehicles, legislation and law enforcement, mobility planning, urban land use planning etc. In other words, its ambit spans engineering aspects of both roads and vehicles on one hand and the provision of post crash healthcare on the other.

World over, Nations have initiated various measures towards their commitment to check fatalities due to road accidents by way of improvement of roads, vehicle design, strengthening of active and passive safety systems and campaigns regarding safe driving.

Under the National Automotive Testing and R&D Infrastructure Project (NATRiP), three crash labs are being set up where vehicles will be tested for their crash worthiness. With the commissioning of these crash labs by 2012, India will be equipped to design, develop and certify vehicles which conform to newly evolving safety standards. Notification for new crash regulations are under formulation. Crash test ratings will also generate awareness among the buyers to make informed decision on buying a vehicle keeping in view the safety features of the vehicle. {Excellent step}

It is now required to incorporate latest technologies and safety regulations to ensure reduction of road traffic injuries through passive safety measures in particular. The emphasis is to make Indian roads much safer.

Let those numbers sink in for a moment: 100,000-160,000 is the population of a small town. Wiped out every year for the past few years.

Don't forget this in the rush to preserve H&D and defend the 'Indic-soop-e-riority' of the current urban/road situation.

The WHO study reported that the actual number of fatalities on China's roads is more than twice the offical figure or about 250,000 killed each year. This study estimates that 45,000 people are injured and 680 killed on China's roads each day

Road kill man eats rat stew and hedgehog casserole

Rat stew, fox cub fricassee, hedgehog casserole – no it's not a medieval banquet, they're the main courses at Jonathan McGowan's roadkill dinner parties.

The 41-year-old trawls the streets near his home looking for fresh, pre-minced remains of small mammals, also including badgers, snakes and mice.
Rat stew is the order of the day for Jonathan McGowan Rat stew is the order of the day for Jonathan McGowan

After scraping them off the Tarmac, he cooks the rubber-tinged meat with ingredients such as garlic, onions and sultanas to serve up dishes including tawny owl tikka masala and heron bolognese to unwitting guests.

"I go out as often as I can to pick up the night's victims," the taxidermist said.

"Whenever I have friends round, I serve up dinner and they say, ;Ooh that's lovely, what is it?' and I tell them.

Shiv,

I have posted all those figures from WHO showing that Indian traffic was in tune with the developed countries traffic. and Purush himself reposted all those figures in this thread,....

GoI is awesome in so many ways...they meticulously collect and keep so much data.

Motor vehicle population has grown at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 10 per
cent 2000-2009, during fueled by a rising tide of motorization. Concomitantly, traffic risk and
exposure have grown. During the year 2010, there were around 5 lakh road accidents, which
resulted in deaths of 134,513 people and injured more than 5 lakh persons in India. These
numbers translate into 1 road accident every minute, and 1 road accident death every four
minutes.

The loss to the Indian economy due to fatalities and accident injuries estimated at 3% of
GDP in 1999-2000 is particularly severe as 53.1% of road accident victims were in the age group
of 25 to 65 years in 2010, with pedestrians, bicyclists and two-wheelers, who comprise the most
unprotected road users, accounting for around 40% of all fatalities.

 The number of total accidents reported in 2010 was 499,628. After a moderate increase
of 0.35% during 2009, the number of accidents reported during 2010 showed a growth of
2.72 % as compared with accidents reported in the year 2009.
 The number of persons killed increased by 7 per cent during 2010 in comparison to 4.8
per cent during 2009.
 The number of persons injured which had recorded a decline of 1.5 per cent during 2009,
increased by 2.3 per cent during 2010.
 The total number of road accidents, injuries and deaths increased at CAGR of 2.5%, 2.8%
and 5.5%, respectively, between the years 2000 and 2010.

During 2010, 499,628 road accidents were reported by all States/ Union Territories (UTs)
(Chart 1). Of these, about 23.9% (119,558) were fatal accidents. The number of persons killed
in road accidents was 134,513, i.e. an average of one fatality per 3.7 accidents. {1.12 people killed per 'fatal accident'?}

The proportion
of fatal accidents in total road accidents has consistently increased since 2001 from 17.6% to
23.9% in 2010 (Table 2). The severity of road accidents, measured in terms of persons killed per
100 accidents, has also increased from 19.9 in 2001 to 26.9 in 2010.

Number of accidents per lakh population increased from 21.2 in 1970 to 22.8 in 1980,
followed by a sharp increase to 33.8 in 1990. Between 1995 and 2005, the figures
fluctuated in the range of 38 to 40; moving above 42 in recent years (2007 and 2008); a
slight dip to 41.9 in 2009, followed by a rise to 42.5 in 2010. Between 1970 and 2010,
there was an increase of more than 100% (Chart 2).

A significant decline {AoA!}in the number of accidents per ten thousand motor vehicles is
discernible from 814 in 1970, 339 in 1980, 148 in 1990, 80 in 2000 and further to 42 in
2009 i.e. decline of almost 95 % since 1970 (Chart 3).

The trend in the number of accidents per ten thousand kilometres of the road length
shows that the number of accidents have increased over the last few decades, from 960 in
1970 to 1,027 in 1980; peaked to 1,424 in 1990; but declined thereafter, fluctuating
within a band of 1,100 to 1,200 per ten thousand kilometres. For the latest year 2008, the
figure stood at 1,179 (Chart 4).

There has been more than three-fold increase in the number of persons injured per lakh of
population from 13 in 1970 to 44.8 in 2010 (Chart 5). Similarly, persons killed per lakh
of population jumped four-fold from 2.7 in 1970 to 11.4 in 2010 (Chart 6).

Exposure of
population to road accidents leading to deaths and injuries largely depends on the amount
of travel undertaken, defined as the number of trips, the distance travelled, or time in the
road environment, number of motor vehicles and the amount of motorized traffic, etc.
These factors are associated with development and income levels.

In high income
countries, risk of road accidents arising out of these factors have been reduced through
effective road safety engineering, traffic management, enforcement of traffic laws and the
severity of penalties for infringement.

As regards number of persons injured and killed per 10,000 vehicles the decline has been
dramatic. {AoA!} To some extent, the decline in this parameter has been brought about by
improvements in vehicle crashworthiness and occupant protection.

The number of
persons injured per 10,000 vehicles has plummeted from 500 in 1970 to about 45 in 2009
(Chart 7). It is noteworthy that this parameter has consistently declined since 1996
despite sustained high growth in vehicle population. Similarly, the number of persons
killed per 10,000 vehicles in the country has also fallen from about 104 in 1970 to less
than 11 in 2009 (Chart . However, injuries and deaths per 10,000 motor vehicles as a
parameter has a limitation as it does not capture road related accidents and deaths
connected with non-motorized forms of transport which are significant in rural areas. {Which brings us back to the question: what is a reasonably good metric?}

The number of persons injured and killed per ten thousand kilometres of road length has
more than doubled since 1970. Modern road systems are largely designed for the motor
vehicles exposing vulnerable road users to greater risk of accidents.
In developing
countries, lack of foot-paths, service lanes, cycle tracks, traffic calming measures to
reduce speed where non motorized mode of transport blend with motorized traffic,
increases the risk of accidents and its severity. These factors have contributed towards
increase in road related accidents, injuries and deaths in relation to rise in terms of road
length. High-income countries have made progress in providing facilities for pedestrians
and cyclists alongwith speed reduction schemes, thereby weakening the nexus between
road accidents, injuries and deaths with expansion in road network.

The numbers of
persons injured per ten thousand kilometres of road length have risen from 590 in 1970 to
1,273 in 2008 (Chart 9); similarly persons killed per ten thousand kilometres of road
length more than doubled from 122 in 1970 to 292 in 2008 (Chart 10). However, both
these parameters have witnessed ups and downs over the last decade.

Occupants of (i) two-wheelers, (ii) passenger cars and taxis, (iii) trucks and (iv) buses accounted
for 26.2%, 15.5%, 13.3% and 8.3%, respectively, of total road fatalities.

Bicycle riders (4.6%)
and pedestrians (8.7%) are the most unprotected road users and have to share scarce road space
with motorized vehicles of different engine power and speed resulting in serious conflicts within
traffic flows.

The high socio-economic cost of the injuries and fatalities, occurring due to road
accidents, and the need for effective policies for curbing road accidents make it imperative to
study the causes of road accidents.

The analysis of road accidents in terms of causal factors
reveals that drivers’ fault is the single most important factor responsible for accidents, fatalities
and injuries. Drivers’ fault accounted for 78.0 % (389,885 accidents) of total accidents; 74.6 %
(100,319) of the total number of persons killed and 79.8 % (420,823) of the total number of
persons injured in road accidents during 2010 (Chart 22).

The fault of the cyclists and that of the
pedestrians appears to be of a marginal consequence accounting for a share of 1.2 % and 2.7 %,
respectively in road accidents during 2010. Similarly, cyclists and pedestrians were responsible
for about 1.3 % and 2.6 %, respectively, of total number of persons killed in road accidents.
Defects in the motor vehicles caused 1.7 % of road accidents and 2.3 % of fatalities in road
accidents

Cross country comparisons of incidence of road accident related deaths and injury
accidents per lakh persons as per World Road Statistics 2010 (published by International Road
Federation, Geneva) showed lower incidence of both the parameters for India in comparison to
many developed and developing countries.

The number of road accident deaths per lakh of
population at 10.8 in India
was much lower compared with 12.08 in the Republic of Korea,
12.25 in USA and the Russian Federation (21.06) (Chart 23).

The highest number of deaths per lakh of population was reported for Anguilla (31.25) in 2007, followed closely by South Africa (31.18)in 2007.
For the year 2008, Malaysia reported the highest figure of 24.16 and the Philippines
reported the lowest number of deaths per lakh population at 1.21 in 2008.

Countries which showed lower persons killed per 100,000 population were Japan (4.04), United Kingdom (4.13), Germany (5.45) and China (5.55) {Cheeni stats are likely to be false}

Saar, cow is a domesticated animal already not a wild species.

You still haven't answered my question about whether the cow roaming around in the city is good for the cow itself?
Let me reiterate:
1) What's it going to eat in the city?
2) What is it going to drink?
3) Where is it going to rest?
4) How is it going to avoid traffic/noise pollution/dangerous objects

Also what about stray dogs biting toddlers?
What is more important to you - the safety and well being of a toddler/senior citizen or the 'right' of a stray dog to do whatever the *&%$ it wants?

The quality of life for city dwellers must be improved. Isn't that what we are all supporting?

Relocating cows from the city streets is one of the steps.

The cows were given royal status as most Brahmin households do to cows. The cows were cleaned properly, were regularly checked by the local vet who was a family friend, they had spacious land for roaming, clean drinking water, shady trees for resting under etc. In short they were happy, contented cows.

I strongly suspect they wouldn't have been so happy if they were left to fend for themselves on the hot baking roads, dodging the genocidal KSRTC buses, without access to clean food and water.

But..but.. these terms and conditions are artificial constructs by humans, not in tune with the natural free-for-all outlook for humans + animals.

The quality of life for *all* organisms must be improved. It includes human beings and animals. Relocating one species from any location is hardly a fair approach. .

For instance in Chennai, the entire Purasawalkam High road should be lowered to create a continuous underpass. All the side streets can then become pedestrian only and have linking connection across.

It is indeed major surgery to separate out the vehicle corridors from the pedestrian corridors. Not least will be much bridge and underpass construction. For instance world standard is pedestrian first. Meaning vehicle takes bridge/underpass and pedestrian walks on grade everywhere. Contrast that with our pedestrian flyovers and underpasses and you can see why it does not work in India.

But it is very much doable and is what it will take to tame our traffic. For instance in Chennai, the entire Purasawalkam High road should be lowered to create a continuous underpass. All the side streets can then become pedestrian only and have linking connection across.

At the OMR road, I always see groups of people doing the 'Indian pedestrian road cross adventure' even when they are right below the pedestrian bridge. They would dare to run across the road, hop on the divider/median and run across - but won't climb up 20 steps and walk and climb down. Is cost the factor on not elevating/'under passing' the motored traffic and letting people walk on grade?

Purush,

I'm very certain the percentage of pedestrians and cyclists being killed is 60%+ in India. .

Fact is Indian road habits are disgusting. Because they are rooted in ignorance of consequence and not motor skills.

Those that equate US and Indian death rates by extrapolating populations are making very basic analytical errors..not worth arguing about.

We have a very long way to go, a lot of education to impart, a lot of habits to change..before we make a difference to the slaughter on Indian roads that goes on.

To do the above, requires some humility and acceptance and not a torn shirt open fly response that is so sadly evident here.

I won't change my view, i won't argue a retarded view that Indian driving habits are great and we are doing very well wrt other countries. We are doing a lousy job really.

PS: One analysis done by KP was that in Kerala too many accidents happen due to drunken driving. And with this data & analysis they are now going hammer and tongs against the drunkards of Kerala.

Does *all* include Flies, Mosquitoes and Cockroaches as well??

The main causes of the increasing death rates in the Road Accidents are:

Not knowing or not adopting correct driving habits.
Increasing number of New generation vehicles especially Two wheelers.
Aggressive driving behavior of Heavy vehicle drivers especially Private Buses & Tipper Lorries.
Drivers sleeping while driving especially of Heavy vehicles & light motor vehicles after midnight due to fatigue and other reasons.
Over speeding.
Bad condition of Roads and absence of different lanes.
Driver /Rider's ignorance of Road conditions, Road signs and the Environmental factors.
Driver /Rider's ignorance or violation of Traffic Rules.
Drunken Driving/Driving without seat belt.
Driving without Helmet.

All road users should remember that road is to be shared amongst all.

These two steps must be syncronised with each other - that is costly to drive and the alternative is a well connected and comfortable Metro/Mono rail system with good feeder bus services.

At the OMR road, I always see groups of people doing the 'Indian pedestrian road cross adventure' even when they are right below the pedestrian bridge. They would dare to run across the road, hop on the divider/median and run across - but won't climb up 20 steps and walk and climb down. Is cost the factor on not elevating/'under passing' the motored traffic and letting people walk on grade?

And with this data & analysis they are now going hammer and tongs against the drunkards of Kerala.

Bad driving habits are due to bad driving environment.

Education, stricter licensing norms, reduction of traffic speed gradients, mass transit options planned for newer suburbs and upcoming towns, better traffic management and planning, rule enforcement are urgent requirements

You can see that in the statistic where drivers are blamed 80% of the time. This tells me that the easy way out is being taken too often when assigning blame.

At the OMR road, I always see groups of people doing the 'Indian pedestrian road cross adventure' even when they are right below the pedestrian bridge. They would dare to run across the road, hop on the divider/median and run across - but won't climb up 20 steps and walk and climb down. Is cost the factor on not elevating/'under passing' the motored traffic and letting people walk on grade?

30% increase in 3 years!!

link

However, with the traffic police increasingly using technology and surveillance cameras (with around 180 cameras operational in the city), Mr. Saleem hoped that the detection rate would increase. For example, after businessman Arjun Hari Nair (28) was run over in the early hours of September 15 on Ramana Maharshi Road, policemen tracked down the cab driver with the help of images taken from cameras as well as GPS coordinates to identify the taxi.