Road Safety Network Calls For Urgent Policy Overhaul To Halve Fatalities By 2030

With India recording one road death every three minutes, draining an estimated 3–5% of India’s GDP annually and disproportionately affecting low-income families, experts have called for a National Road Safety Mission rooted in scientific speed norms and stronger accountability to half the fatalities by 2030.

Ahead of the World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims, the Road Safety Network (RSN) — a coalition of civil society organisations working to reduce road crash fatalities — released a solution-focused whitepaper on Thursday during a high-level virtual dialogue on “Road Safety: Exploring Systemic Gaps and Policy Solutions.”

It was attended by officials from transport, health, and education departments, along with leading road safety experts.

RSN’s whitepaper, Solving India’s Road Safety Crisis with Data-Backed, Scientific, and Evidence-Based Solutions, presented a detailed blueprint anchored in data-led governance, safer road design, and institutional accountability.

The report noted that India recorded 4,80,583 crashes and 1,72,890 deaths in 2023—almost 11% of global road fatalities despite holding only 1% of the world’s vehicles.

Experts at the session underscored that these deaths are “predictable and preventable,” driven by chronic gaps in enforcement, unsafe road design, and fragmented governance structures.

Prof. (Dr.) Sikdar, Advisor to the Indian Roads Congress, stressed the need for unwavering commitment to the Safe System Approach. “A high level of passion and commitment is required from policymakers, planners, and engineers to protect vulnerable road users and ensure facilities built for them are safeguarded from encroachment and misuse,” he said.

Moderating the discussion, Prof. (Dr.) Bhargab Maitra of IIT Kharagpur and a member of RSN, emphasised the need to redesign roads based on India’s traffic realities. “We must prioritise speed management and adapt our road designs to ensure safety for all users,” he said.

Highlighting metropolitan challenges, CUMTA road safety expert Ravishankar called for immediate reforms in data accuracy, enforcement, and engineering. He recommended improving police crash data for better cause analysis, ensuring helmet compliance through education and enforcement, and holding road-owning agencies accountable to key IRC safety standards. “Together, these measures can save countless lives,” he noted.

Experts also pointed out the enormous economic burden of road crashes, which drain an estimated 3–5% of India’s GDP annually and disproportionately affect low-income families.

Without coordinated, evidence-driven reforms, they warned, the country risks continuing its trajectory of preventable loss of life on the roads.

The five urgent measures include establishment of a National Road Safety Mission (NRSM) — a central coordinating mechanism envisioned to bring coherence to the fragmented efforts currently spread across multiple ministries and state departments. Equally critical is the adoption of scientific speed management practices, the RSN said, arguing that speed limits must be rationalised based on road function, engineering design, and human tolerance levels, rather than on arbitrary thresholds.

This, the network noted, would allow authorities to better manage risk and reduce the severity of crashes, particularly along high-speed corridors where fatalities are disproportionately high.

The network further called for legally binding state road-safety action plans backed by clear accountability mechanisms. These plans, RSN suggests, must incorporate measurable targets to ensure that states move beyond advisory frameworks towards time-bound, outcome-oriented action. Such enforceability, it maintains, is vital to bridging the gap between policy announcements and on-ground implementation.

A significant emphasis has also been placed on the protection of vulnerable road users — pedestrians, cyclists, and two-wheeler riders — who account for nearly 68 per cent of all road deaths. RSN recommended safer street design, improved lighting, and stringent enforcement of helmet and seat-belt rules to safeguard these groups, who remain disproportionately exposed to risk in India’s rapidly motorising urban centres.

Lastly, RSN also highlighted the urgent need to modernise crash-data systems to enable real-time and transparent reporting. “Without credible and timely data”, the network warned, “India’s road-safety framework will remain reactive rather than preventive — hindering the country’s ability to decisively reduce its road-fatality burden.”