When the Mumbai-Pune Expressway was opened in 2002, it was expected to offer a faster, smoother and safer drive than the old congested, accident-prone Mumbai-Pune highway.
The new road -- India’s first six-lane, access-controlled highway -- has delivered on speed and smoothness. But its record on safety is dismal.
In the 12 years that the Expressway has been operational, close to 500 people have died in over 2,000 accidents on the 93-km stretch. According to Maharashtra Traffic Police records, there were 214 accidents between October 2012 and October 2013 alone. They resulted in 72 deaths and left 140 people injured.
The Mumbai-Pune Expressway is not the only new, well-maintained road that is witnessing a high number of accidents. Navi Mumbai’s Palm Beach Road -- a favourite stretch for Mumbaiites seeking smooth drives -- saw 62 fatalities between 2009 and 2012, according to the Navi Mumbai Traffic Police.
India roughly accounts for 15% of road traffic deaths worldwide, although it has just 1% of the world's motor vehicles. In 2011, the country witnessed 440,123 accidents that left 136,834 people dead, according to the National Crime Records Bureau. In the decade up to 2011, the number of deaths on the road jumped by 44.2 per cent.
A rough calculation of the data in the World Health Organisation's global status report on road safety 2013, on the number of registered vehicles and the number of estimated road traffic fatalities around the world, indicates that in India, there is an average of one death for every 840 vehicles. Meanwhile, China has one death for 2,942 vehicles, while the US has one death for every 7,847 vehicles.
What's more, the majority of road fatalities in India (65%) occur on state and national highways and 78% of all road fatalities are attributed to human errors, such as speeding, inattention, drunken driving and prediction errors.
Across India, new roads built with modern technology, proper signage and safety features have failed to bring down accident rates. But to analysts of human behaviour, this is not surprising at all.
“The smoother, wider and better a road is, the more accidents there are likely to be -- and this is because of natural human behaviour,” said Biju Dominic, chief executive officer of Final Mile, a consultancy firm that uses behavioural science to solve problems for clients.
Dominic and Final Mile’s co-founder Ram Prasad explained the link between good roads and higher accident rates through the concept of risk compensation: the safer the situation, the greater the tendency of people to take risks.
“All human beings have an internal threshold for risks, so when your environment is safer, you are likely to compensate for it by taking higher risks,” said Prasad. When a road is bumpy, steep or riddled with blind curves, motorists perceive it as more risky and are likely to be careful. But when a road is perceived as safe, it is natural for drivers to step on the accelerator or lower their alertness.
The theory of risk compensation also holds true for the kind of vehicles being used -- high-end cars with sophisticated features are more likely to have accidents than simpler cars, says Prasad. If a car has an anti-lock braking system, the driver knows he can bring the car to a halt in a microsecond, so his mind automatically compensates and he is likely to apply the brakes later than usual.
One of Final Mile’s successful projects was to reduce the number of people crossing the tracks of Mumbai’s railway system. Between ten and 12 people die on the city's train system every day. Final Mile's solution was to replace instruction-based signboards with hoardings of horrific images of a man getting crushed under a train. It was based on the principle that people respond to life-size images, particularly faces, that trigger emotional memories.
Now, Dominic and Prasad are hoping to bring down rates of road accidents, keeping risk compensation in mind. “India is second only to China in the number of road accidents it has, but the solution does not lie just in infrastructure and policy,” said Dominic. “We need to take this aspect of natural human behaviour into consideration if we want to bring down the number of accidents.”
The solutions, says Prasad, could involve introducing elements of vulnerability on big roads, such as putting in some twists and turns on roads that were built straight. "We cannot go back to making bad roads, but if there is a perception of risk, people will be more careful,” he said.
The new road -- India’s first six-lane, access-controlled highway -- has delivered on speed and smoothness. But its record on safety is dismal.
In the 12 years that the Expressway has been operational, close to 500 people have died in over 2,000 accidents on the 93-km stretch. According to Maharashtra Traffic Police records, there were 214 accidents between October 2012 and October 2013 alone. They resulted in 72 deaths and left 140 people injured.
The Mumbai-Pune Expressway is not the only new, well-maintained road that is witnessing a high number of accidents. Navi Mumbai’s Palm Beach Road -- a favourite stretch for Mumbaiites seeking smooth drives -- saw 62 fatalities between 2009 and 2012, according to the Navi Mumbai Traffic Police.
India roughly accounts for 15% of road traffic deaths worldwide, although it has just 1% of the world's motor vehicles. In 2011, the country witnessed 440,123 accidents that left 136,834 people dead, according to the National Crime Records Bureau. In the decade up to 2011, the number of deaths on the road jumped by 44.2 per cent.
A rough calculation of the data in the World Health Organisation's global status report on road safety 2013, on the number of registered vehicles and the number of estimated road traffic fatalities around the world, indicates that in India, there is an average of one death for every 840 vehicles. Meanwhile, China has one death for 2,942 vehicles, while the US has one death for every 7,847 vehicles.
What's more, the majority of road fatalities in India (65%) occur on state and national highways and 78% of all road fatalities are attributed to human errors, such as speeding, inattention, drunken driving and prediction errors.
Across India, new roads built with modern technology, proper signage and safety features have failed to bring down accident rates. But to analysts of human behaviour, this is not surprising at all.
“The smoother, wider and better a road is, the more accidents there are likely to be -- and this is because of natural human behaviour,” said Biju Dominic, chief executive officer of Final Mile, a consultancy firm that uses behavioural science to solve problems for clients.
Dominic and Final Mile’s co-founder Ram Prasad explained the link between good roads and higher accident rates through the concept of risk compensation: the safer the situation, the greater the tendency of people to take risks.
“All human beings have an internal threshold for risks, so when your environment is safer, you are likely to compensate for it by taking higher risks,” said Prasad. When a road is bumpy, steep or riddled with blind curves, motorists perceive it as more risky and are likely to be careful. But when a road is perceived as safe, it is natural for drivers to step on the accelerator or lower their alertness.
The theory of risk compensation also holds true for the kind of vehicles being used -- high-end cars with sophisticated features are more likely to have accidents than simpler cars, says Prasad. If a car has an anti-lock braking system, the driver knows he can bring the car to a halt in a microsecond, so his mind automatically compensates and he is likely to apply the brakes later than usual.
One of Final Mile’s successful projects was to reduce the number of people crossing the tracks of Mumbai’s railway system. Between ten and 12 people die on the city's train system every day. Final Mile's solution was to replace instruction-based signboards with hoardings of horrific images of a man getting crushed under a train. It was based on the principle that people respond to life-size images, particularly faces, that trigger emotional memories.
Now, Dominic and Prasad are hoping to bring down rates of road accidents, keeping risk compensation in mind. “India is second only to China in the number of road accidents it has, but the solution does not lie just in infrastructure and policy,” said Dominic. “We need to take this aspect of natural human behaviour into consideration if we want to bring down the number of accidents.”
The solutions, says Prasad, could involve introducing elements of vulnerability on big roads, such as putting in some twists and turns on roads that were built straight. "We cannot go back to making bad roads, but if there is a perception of risk, people will be more careful,” he said.
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