'Road Crashes are Preventable', say Experts at Induction Workshop on Making Indian Roads Safer

NEW DELHI, August 2, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --

In a workshop on road safety organised by Lawxy E-ventures recently, experts working on road safety issues across the country concluded that road crashes are preventable.

India is witnessing over 150,000 deaths in road traffic crashes every year or approximately 400 lives per day and in just last ten years it has lost more than 13.5 lakh citizens in road traffic crashes with a majority of them being in the productive age group of 15-45 years. Road crash deaths are one of the biggest man-made disasters of the present time and causing huge loss to human lives, emotional and social trauma to families, and economic loss to the nations. It is also causing a long-term adverse impact on physical and mental health, financial burden and poverty among victims or survivors of road crash injuries, especially people belonging to vulnerable and marginalized sections of society.

The day-long workshop was attended by stakeholders including road safety experts, legal professionals and experts from WHO at the National Law University, Delhi. This is the first of the three workshops being organised for legal professionals to focus on different policy and legislative facets of road safety in India.

The workshop deliberated on areas such as road safety, vehicle safety, the role of law and youth organisations in road safety, and discussions around the changes being brought about by the Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Bill 2017, which is pending before the Parliament.

Mr Ranjit Gadgil, Programme Director at Parisar, stressed on the need to have good laws and their implementation. Mr Nalin Sinha, India Coordinator, Global Health Advocacy Incubator (GHAI), outlined the various factors involved in maintaining road safety. Road safety is a multi-faceted issue requiring collaboration and coordination between ministries, States and civil society. The Government should try to make road safety a national priority and address the issue of rising road deaths on a mission mode. The first step towards making Indian roads safer could be to bring, at the earliest possible, a strong and comprehensive legislation on road safety based on evidence-based interventions, best practices, and addressing key behavioural risk factors that are responsible for a large number of road deaths and injuries in the country.

Mr Ravishankar Rajaraman, Technical Director, JP Research India, discussed regarding the application of scientific practises and the Haddon Matrix in road accident investigations and data analysis, and brought to the fore various important issues that need to be addressed. He addressed issues such as, having a clear definition for a road traffic incident in India, focusing on safety legislation for trucks, two-wheelers and safer road infrastructure, and most importantly, the use of crash data, obtained through scientific crash investigations, for better road-safety decision making.

The last session of the day on the MACT compensation model was led by Mr Manu Sebastian, an Advocate at the Kerala High Court, who discussed the components of a just and reasonable compensation and the multiplier method of calculating compensation.

This initiative is supported by the WHO Country Office for India.

More details can be found on http://ldp-india.org/ .

About Lawxy E-ventures Private Limited

Lawxy was incorporated as Lawxy E-ventures Private Limited in India in October 2015 under the Companies Act 2013. Lawxy was founded by three dynamic and experienced lawyers but has since then grown to include designers, illustrators and engineers. Lawxy creates innovative technology products and imparts training and education to help legal professionals simplify their practice management. PocketLawyer.com is one of the technology products created by Lawxy - an online marketplace and a safe reliable virtual resource to help you resolve your legal issues online.

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