Recommendation of the Committee

1. The committee recommends that Government should implement the measure listed by the Committee as early as possible. Considering the constraints of the resources the Government may consider immediate implementation of the Priority 1 proposals in full and the immediate measures of Priority The other measures may be implemented as early as possible.
2. It was observed by the Committee during its tours that there is a sharply divided opinion about speed breakers on highways. One section, notably those who drive the vehicles and ride in them, feel that there should be no speed breakers on the road,: if at all they have to be fixed, they must be as per type plan, properly painted and provided with adequate forewarning boards. The other section mainly consisting of residents of villages by the road side feel that speed breakers are necessity of life. They feel that the speed breakers should be of large size irrespective of the possibility that they may themselves cause accidents. The committee feels that the drivers themselves as a class are responsible for such a situation. None of the drivers even of the vehicles in which the Committee members were travelling paid the slightest attention to speed limit boards by the roadside.(For that matter they did not seem to pay any attention to any of the sign boards at all).

3. Today as soon as a fatal accident occurs in a village, a mob gathers and forces the PWD officers to erect speed breakers. They are not in a mood to listen to any reason at that time. The PWD is, therefore, found to be only reacting to a situation. Once such odd shaped speed breakers are erected the PWD officials find it difficult to correct them later on. It is therefore felt that the PWD may itself take a stock of all such dangerous spots and provide proper speed breakers of standard design to check the speed.

4. Another aspect of the matter is that the residents of the villages by the road sides and especially their children are required to be trained properly in the art of living safely by the side of busy highway. With the advent of better and better roads and more and more speedy , powerful vehicles this has become inevitable. It is, therefore, recommended that in the School of such villages a ten minute sermon by the Principle or other respected person of the school at the end of the morning assembly in the basic rules of behaviour of living safely by the said of busy highways should be made a compulsory part of the curriculum. In this the children should be told again and again about the correct way of crossing the road, not playing on the road, not standing close to the road needlessly and in general about the safe behavior.

5. A concerted campaign appears necessary for ensuring compliance of road signs and instruction boards erected by the roadside. This could be done by a publicity campaign in newspaper, by putting up posters at the roadside dhabas or halting places of drivers, by running training campus for the drivers in public and corporate sectors, by persuading owners of large transport companies to train their own drivers on this aspect, by running an Ad campaign on T.V. and Radio with the help of willing sponsors and by attaching stickers to the vehicles.

6. The committee feels that in view of the increasing speed of vehicles it is necessary to take a second look at the size of the road signs particularly the mandatory ones like the speed limit boards and some of the cautionary signs like zigzag road etc. Perhaps larger signs of special design may force the drivers of the vehicles to notice them better. On N. Hs. and M.S.Hs. important road sign like speed limit boards, no overtaking etc. should be put up on gantry type overhead sign boards. The drivers cannot miss them and might comply with them better.

7. The Government has withdrawn the powers of the Highway police to challan the offending vehicles. The result is that today on the highways there seems to be no enforcement of any kind of any of the the traffic rules and regulations. It had been pleaded by the officers of highway police that at least the officers of that branch may be empowered to book offenders for over speeding, wrong overtaking and negligent driving. Some members of the public have also suggested the same thing indirectly. It is recommended that the Government may consider these aspects carefully.

8. Today the PWD officers in charge of roads are not paying specific attention to the safety aspects of the roads. This has resulted in a situation where the data from the police department has not been analysed carefully to bring out the accident spots. So also many dangerous situations are allowed to developed on highways, e.g. aspects like bad shoulders etc. It is recommended that one officer of the rank of DE may be appointed as an accident preveniton officer in each region. He may be asked to take a look at the roads from some specific angles like bad shoulders, dangerous approaches construction material stacekd close to carriageways, machinery left on the road without lights, etc. His suggestions should be issued under the authority of the CE. The SE,V& QC may also be asked to locate the road from the accidents angle.

9. The geometric design of the road should be audited from road safety angle. Sight distance, superelevation should be thoroughly checked in such audit. Near all summit the pavement should be widened to at least 10.5 width for a length about 150 m on each side of the submit. This will facilitate overtaking and will avoid possibility of head on collision.

10. There should be special drive for lopping and trimming of branches of trees which reduce the sight distance at curves and also reduce the head room on the full formation width of the road. Over the full formation width of a clear headroom of 5.5 m must be ensured. This can be done best by a mobile gang from a tipper. The top of the cabin can be used as a raised platform.

11. The bridges at the bottom of long slopes should invariably be widened to full formation width. Till such widening can be done good hazard markers and flared parapets properly painted should be provided.

12. On high embankment following a long and steep slope , strong safty crash barriers like the Briefen wire crash barrier should be provided. This will prevent vehicles from rolling down the high embankments.

13. When planning facilities like water supply, school, hospital, ration shop etc. maximum efforts should be made to locate them and the same side as the main village or town so that the number of persons required to cross the road for these facilities is reduced. Even where the source of water supply like well is today existing on the opposite side of the road it may be cheaper in the long run to provide another well on the same side as the village. The collage and its hostel and ground should be located on the same side of a road.
14. The road center line marking on 2 lane roads should be maintained in good condition always. This will certainly reduce accidents. Even where renewal of road surface is planned, if the time required to start the renewal is not less than two months ,the center line marking should be restored at least with ordinary road marking paint. The life of such road marking is about 3 months and the cost per km is also relatively less.

15. At all junctions and also a little ahead of such junction, the destination boards indicating the names of places where the branch road lead should invariably be fixed. Also village name boards should be put ahead of villages on a "countdown" system. This will enable the drivers to control speed in time.

16. The staff of P.W.D. who are required to work on the N.Hs. and S.Hs. should be made to wear a bright flouproscent sleeveless jacket of orange colors so that they are easily visible to the drivers of fast moving vehicles.

17. Bus bays must be provided for all roads at all places where buses stop to discharge and pick up passengers . At important places it will be better to provide proper parking spaces for the private buses , taxis, etc. which ply between different cities.

18. The carriage way of the road stretch near bus stands in large places should be widened to about 12m width to keep the vendors etc. Well clear of the main carriageway. It is unlikely that these people will occupy the black topped surface.

19. The Municipal Corporations and Councils should creat sufficient parking space off the road for vehicles stopping to pay the octroi. The Government of Maharashtra have already issued the necessary instructions in this regard vide G.L. No. TPV-1097/958/CR-44/97/UD-27, dated 17th March, 1997.

20. The IRC should be approached to modify their standard layouts for petrol pumps so that the pumps are located sufficiently away from the roads and within the compound of the petrol pumps there is enough space for trucks etc. to halt inside such compounds. This will prevent their parking on the road.

21. All the roadside dhabas, hotels etc. which are today close to roads in violation of Ribbon Development Rules should be forced to move back and create adequate parking apace for their customers.

22. The PWD officers must be instructed strictly to ensure that contraction materials are not allowed to be unloaded closed to the carriageway. Strict action against the contractors who violate this requirement should be taken. No contraction machinery may be left be the roadside without proper red lights, white markers, etc. It should be moved as far away from the carriage way as possible.

23. On N.Hs. and MSHs. Gantry type overhead road signs should be erected in larger numbers to ensure that important road signs like speed limits, no overtaking zones are not missed by the drivers.

24. A concerted advertising and education campaign may be taken up to educate the drivers about the importance of compliance of road signs particularly like speed limits and no overtaking zones.

25. Facilities should be extended to institutions like Highway Users Club or similar Organisation to erect traffic aid posts by the side of busy highways so that immediate help would be available to accident victims and also drivers of broken down vehicles.

26. It should be compulsory for all S.T.D. Telephone booths on highways to display prominently the telephone numbers of the local authorities to whom one may phone for help at time of an accident on highway.

27. Stray cattle roaming on the roads should be confined into cattle pounds by relevant authorities. Such cattle pounds need to be reactivated.

28. All junctions should be made highly visible by putting up brightly painted signs, guard stones and in some cases by illumination also. Type adopted in Karnataka needs to be studied for this purpose.

29. Wherever possible the pavements should be widened on curves and on sharp curves curves the pavements should be widened to 4-lanes and a divider provided in between. 3

30. In the long run the road pavements should be widened as per the traffic intensity. As an interim measure paved shoulders can be provided.

31. Wherever the road pavement has been widened to intermediate lane or two lanes, minor bridges and C.D. works must be widened to full formation width. Till this can be achieved hazard markers should be provided and splayed parapets constructed at the end of the bridges.

32. Design speeds for various stretches of roads should be displayed prominently at intervals along each road. It has already been mentioned that even though the terms of reference of the Committee are limited to the deficiencies in the roads, it has received all encompassing suggestions from the public. The Committee also noticed certain things in its tours. The Committee finds it very necessary to offer some recommendations based on all such suggestions and observations. These recommendations are divided in 3 parts.

For drivers

(a) While driving, the drivers should exhibit the traditional Indian courtesy and observe the principle of "after you" so that the possible collisions at road junctions and narrow parts of the road will be avoided.

(b) It is totally wrong to lose one's life or suffer injury or damage due to the mistake of other foolish and negligent drivers. It is still more wrong to try to teach him a lesson from your moving vehicle. Defensive driving is the best policy.

(c) One should never overtake on a left-hand curve because one cannot see the vehicle coming in the opposite direction at such spot.

(d) One should never leave one's lane while taking a right hand turn, particularly if such a turn is blind. One should always keep left and should never ever go into the right side lane.

(e) At every junction, while entering a bigger road from a smaller road, one should come to a dead stop and after making sure of clear road, one should proceed ahead.

(f) One should pay particular attention to road signboards and more so the speed limit boards and obey them.

(g) The speed of the vehicle should depend on the distance up to which the road ahead can be seen, Lesser this distance the lesser should be the speed.

1) For Transport Department

(a) Before issuing licences to drivers they should be shown video tapes of serious accidents on roads so that suitable impressions will be created on their minds and they will drive more responsibly.

(b) It is essential that all vehicles have reflectors on their rear. But it is seen that many trucks, bullockcarts, trailers, etc do not have reflectors. It is, therefore, suggested that just as private agencies are given contracts to tow away wrongly parked vehicles in cities, similarly same agencies may be authorised to stop reflector less vehicles and fix reflectors on the spot. For this such agencies may be permitted to charge 25-50% extra over the over the cost of fixing such reflectors. The petrol pump operators can also be authrised to refuse to supply petrol or diesel to reflectorless vehicles unless such vehicles fix reflectors. The pump operators can stock reflectors for sale at their pumps.
(c) In the vicinity of sugar factories one tractor is seen pulling several trolleys. The total number of trolleys in such trains should be written unavoidably on the rear of the last trolley.

(d) Trucks longer than the usual size e.g. the trucks carrying containers should carry a bold sign on the rear saying that this is a long vehicle or a special type of reflective sign. In some advanced countries like U.K., USA and Canada such a practice is in vogue. This will prevent vehicle drivers being caught on the wrong foot while overtaking and possible accidents will be prevented.

(e) It should be compulsory to paint the front and the rear of heavy vehicles with easily noticeable colour. For example in Tamil Nadu it is noticed that all heavy vehicles have their front and rear painted yellow. It is also suggested that all school buses should be painted in a distinctive colour and no other bus should be allowed to use that colour.

(f) Road safety slogans may be painted on the rear of trucks. The drivers of vehicles following will have to read these slogan per force.

(3) For Educational Institutes

(a) The uniforms of school children should be of bright colour so that they can be seen from afar by the drivers.

(b) (b) Every day after the prayers the students should be advised regarding road safety for 5-10 minutes. This will have lasting life long impression on their minds. They should be told that road is not a place to play or to stand chit-chatting on. They should remain as far away from the road as possible. While crossing the road, they should do so at zebra painting as far as possible and only after making sure that the road is clear. While going home they should keep away from the main carriage way

Future Work

The Committee is continuing its work of road inspection. It will do so continuously till it has inspected all the roads entrusted to it. It is learnt from the field officers that because of the inspection tours of the Committee, the attention of the PWD officers has started focussing on road safety. They are becoming more aware of the subject and the deficiencies on various roads are coming to their notice gradually.

Action on the Recommendations of the committee

The filed officers of the PWD are preparing proposals for improvement of roads on the basis of observation notes of the Committee. The State Government and the Central Government are both approving such proposals according to the availability of funds and the works are being started one by one. The State Government have reserved Rs. 12 crores for the purpose in the current year and it is understood that Central Govt. also are likely to sanction about the same amount for this work. As per the latest data available so far on National Highways 57 spots have been improved at an expenditure of Rs.145 lakhs. On State Highways, 105 spots have been improved and action is in progress at 89 more places. The expenditure involved is Rs. 202 lakhs.

Such road improvement works will help top make the roads in Maharashtra much safer than at present. Statistics show that at least at some locations the number of accidents has reduced after improvements. However, for checking the accidents which occur due to 3 other reasons, departments and institutions other than P.W.D. have to take the necessary action. The Revenue Deptt. and Forest Deptt. have already instructed their staff to cooperate with the PWD and give necessary permission to the PWD staff when they approach for permission to cut or trim the trees for road safety.

Maharashtra is the first State to appoint such a Committee with a view to check road accidents. The concept is being appreciated on all India level also and it is possible that it maybe copied elsewhere. No doubt this will add to the high reputation of Maharashtra.