MAN MADE DISASTER

MAN MADE DISASTERS - ROAD ACCIDENTS – AN ANALYSIS

K.ABIRAMI B.A., B. L (HONS)

SCHOOL OF EXCELLENCE IN LAW

Introduction

An accident is defined as an unplanned and uncontrolled

event in which action and reaction of an object or

person results in personal injury or damage to the

property. Accidents, tragically, are not often due to

ignorance, but are due to carelessness, thoughtlessness

and over confidence. Road India has among the highest

number of road accident casualties in the world. These

are caused by the carelessness of the drivers and their

ignorance and negligence of the traffic rules.

A government statistic says that a death occurs every

four minutes on Indian roads. Causes for road accidents

are many; the congested city roads, bad road surfaces,

flooding of roads, reckless driving, inadequate traffic

management and so on and so forth. There are two types

of disasters

i. Natural disasters

ii. Manmade disasters

A disaster is said to be manmade when the event caused

directly and principally by one or more identifiable

deliberate or negligent human actions.1 Human made

disaster may be caused either by intentional or

unintentional human actions. “More than 90% of road

accidents are caused by human error”2. A road accident

1 The law dictionary

2 Said by Mr. Bob joop goos chairman of the international organization for road accident prevention at the opening day of the international symposium on ‘The Role of Media in Traffic Safety’ on April 2011.

is a consequence of the quality of the road transport

system or a break in the balance between the

environmental demand and the driver’s ability to act3.

Unlike natural disasters, preventive and regulatory

measures assume greater importance in the case of man-

made disasters. Of course, rescue and relief measures

are common to both natural and man-made disasters. On

account of the human element involved in triggering the

man-made disasters, the victims can have recourse to

civil and public law remedies and those responsible

for culpable negligence may also be liable for criminal

action under the provisions of Indian Penal Code or

various special laws to which reference is made

hereinafter. Specific remedies for claiming relief or

compensation is available in certain statutes. Further,

under the law of torts, compensation can be claimed in3 Said by Mr. Jose Miguel, chairman, Portuguese society for road accidents prevention

a Civil Court for the damage/injury caused on account

of tortuous acts of negligence. Relief can also be

sought against the public authorities by taking resort

to Constitutional remedies under Article 32 and 226 of

the Constitution.

4Road accidents are the result of mismatch of the three

elements that is

i. Road ii. Vehicle and iii. Road users.

For the safe and efficient operation of road traffic

these three elements must be in complete harmony all

the times. This paper an attempt has been made to

discuss the Road accident as a manmade disaster.

HUMAN FACTORS IN ROAD ACCIDENTS

4 Consolidated paper on manmade disaster available from http://lawcommissionofindia.nic.in/reports/manmadedisaster.pdf last cited on 02/10/2014

Human factors contribute significantly to increasing

number of road accidents in India. Driving without

license, over speeding, decline to follow traffic

rules, improper maintenance of vehicles and drunken

driving using cell phones while driving, avoiding seat

belt are main reasons for road accidents.

Lack of parking facility

With the increasing level of ownership of vehicles

problem also increased. Most of them park their

vehicles on the main road, foot path even in the

service road. The civic authorities are also dig the

road for repair work or installation of

Utilities without following safety norms all this

encroachment of right to way of the road users leads to

unsafe operation of traffics. 5

5 P.k.sikdar, road safety hazard – a manmade disaster ,edited by pradeep chaturvedi

Decline to follow traffic rules

In India most of the peoples are illiterate as to

knowing of traffic rules. Even the literate persons who

know the traffic rules are knowingly decline to follow.

If they seeing the police officer stand near the signal

they obey the traffic rules otherwise not. Always they

need someone to supervise. This type of activities will

be changed.

Drunken drive

Drunken driving is one of the major causes of road

accidents. The statistics also show that most of the

road accidents in the highways are due to drunken

driving only. In India; drunken driving is customary in

commercial vehicle drivers. Private car owners and

youngsters are also major players in the game. Small

bars along the Indian highways are of prime concern to

control drunken driving. India has laws to check the

drunken driving but its effective implementation is

still to be worked upon.6

Using cell phones while driving

Now a day’s everyone is having cell phones which become

the part and partial of our life. Most of them use cell

phone while driving vehicles.

CURRENT LEVEL OF ROAD ACCIDENTS

As per the report7 about 3400 people died per day

due to RTAs in the world during 2010, nearly 700 of

6 S. gopala Krishnan, a Public Health Perspective of Road Traffic Accidents

7 WHO. Global Status Report on Road Safety. 2013

them being children. Nearly 1.3 million people die on

the world’s roads every year and about 20 to 50 million

suffer grievous injuries, making them often disabled.

Half of those dying are vulnerable road user’s viz.,

22% pedestrians, 5% cyclists and 23% motorcyclists.

Young adults between 15 and 44 years constitute 59% of

global RTFs. The report indicates that worldwide the

total number of road traffic deaths remains

unacceptably high at 1.24 million per year. Only 28

countries, covering 7% of the world’s population, have

comprehensive road safety laws on five key risk

factors: drinking and driving, speeding and failing to

use motor cycle helmets, seat belts, and child

restraints.

India witnessed one road accident every minute in

2011 which claimed one life every 3.7 minutes, one of

the highest in the world.  According to the latest

report8, a total of 4.97 lakh road accident was reported

in 2011. Though compared to 2010, the accidents have

gone down by 1,945, the number of deaths at 1, 42,485

have increased by over 7,000. Driver’s fault accounted

for a whopping 77.5% of the total road accidents while

pedestrian and cyclist’s fault accounted for a mere

3.7% and just 1.5% of accidents happened due to defect

in road condition.

ACCIDENT SEVERITY

The high proportion of fatal accidents and the high

fatalities / 100 accidents compared to previous years

implies increasing severity. 9 The number of accidents

is increasing day by day we are now in the passion to

control the same otherwise it will be main reason for

decreasing population of the country.

8 Road Transport ministry repot 20119 G. Kondala Rao, Road Traffic Safety Management in India –Analysis - Exploring Solutions, Volume 2, Issue 12, December 2013

No. of road accidents, persons and accident severity10

10 TRW, MORTH, Govt. of India. Road Accidents in India 2011 February 2012.

Top 5 States of India for road accident deaths11

Top five states which facing more number of accidents

in India are Uttar Pradesh, Tamil nadu, Andhra Pradesh,

Maharashtra, and Karnataka

The number of deaths occurring due to road accidents in

Uttar Pradesh is the highest in the country. In 2003

road accidents accounted for 7,854 deaths, in 2011

number of death was an increase of 6,337 deaths over

the previous year.

11 http://www.wheelsunplugged.com/features/top-5-states-india-road-accident-deaths/1448 last cited on 02/10/2014.

The period of 2003 to 2005 number of deaths occurring

on the roads of Tamil Nadu in the year 2003 was 9,275.

Since 2006 the rate of death has been steadily on the

raised and in the years 2010 and 2011 it was 15000+.

The death toll caused due to road accidents in the

state of Andhra Pradesh as at par with Tamil Nadu. In

2003 the state witnessed 9,679 deaths on its roads In

the year 2011 however the number of deaths(15165) fell

by a few hundred when compared to the number in

2010(15684).

The number of deaths caused by road accidents in

Maharashtra in 2003 was the highest in the country at

the time. Since then the death increased but

fluctuations are seen over the years. In 2011 the death

was 13,057, lower than Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and

Andhra Pradesh.

The number of deaths due to road accidents in the state

of Karnataka stood at 6,195 in the year 2003. Since

then there has been a raised, topping off at 9590 in

the year 2010. In the year 2011, the number of deaths

fell by over 500 when compared to 2010.

MOTOR VEHICLES AMENDMENT BILL 2007

The National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act

(originally enacted in 1966 and now recodified as 49

U.S.C. Chapter 301) gives the Department of

Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety

Administration (NHTSA) the authority to issue vehicle

safety standards and to require manufacturers to recall

vehicles that have safety-related defects or do not

meet Federal safety standards. Since then, more than

390 million cars, trucks, buses, recreational vehicles,

motorcycles, and mopeds, as well as 46 million tires,

66 million pieces of motor vehicle equipment, and 42

million child safety seats have been recalled to

correct safety defects According to the amendment, the

use of mobile phones while driving could be subjected

to a fine of Rs 500 for the first offence, with Rs 2000

and Rs 5000 chargeable for the second time.

Now jumping the red light for the first time will fetch

you Rs 100 − 500. And a second traffic violation under

this will cost Rs 300 − 1500.

For over speeding, a fine ranging between Rs 400 and

Rs 1000 can be imposed for the first offence and for

the second offence Rs 2000 and Rs 5000. There is no

substantial change in the penalty of rash driving. For

the first offence you will pay a penalty of Rs 1000

and/or 6 months in jail. While the same offence a

second time will cost you between Rs 2000 and Rs 5000.

The bill has categorized driving under influence as

follows.

In cases where the alcohol level is between 30 and 60

mg per 100 ml of blood, the offender will be subjected

to 6 months in jail and/or Rs 2000 fine. In cases where

the alcohol level is between 60 and 150 mg per 100 ml

of blood, the offender will be subjected to 1 year jail

and/or Rs 4000 fine. For alcohol levels of over 150 mg

per 100 ml of blood, the offender will get a penalty of

2 years imprisonment and/or Rs 5000 fine. In the case

of death in a road accident, the compensation proposed

has been hiked from Rs 25,000 to Rs 100,000. In the

case of serious injury, the compensation would be Rs

50,000. As per the new bill, motor insurance claims

have to be filed within a year of the accident.12

Conclusion and Suggestion

Road accidents are the one of the main problem in our

country even though one of the main cause is the

peoples disobedience of the traffic rules and urgency

(man made) now government is in the position to control

them by way of effective implementation of laws. At the

same time the consent ministry is in the position to

save the peoples from road accidents by way of proper

education as to the traffic rules.

There are many causes of the road accidents in our

country but with the full participation of people as

12 Motor Vehicle amendment bill 2007 cleared by Cabinet. Raza Ahmed. March 2. 2012. [Last cited on 02/10/2014]. Available from: http://www.indiandrives.com/motor-vehicle-amendment-bill-2007-cleared-by-cabinet.html

well as the proper enforcement of the legislation we

can over come from this problem.

Roads, of course, must be widened, improved, and

modernized as fast as possible -- and preferably

made two ways. It is rather a grievance among

motorists that little of the revenue they pay in

road-tax, is actually spent on road-improvement.

Vehicles should be subjected to a five-year check,

at least, and old commercial vehicles to spot-

check. This would put many of them of the road

Removal of stray animals like cattle from the road

it will enable smooth flow of traffic.

Preventing the vehicles from parked on busy roads

Issuing of the driving license should be strictly

based on the minimum proficiency acquired by the

learners from designated driving schools

Older vehicles and highly polluting vehicles should

be phased out.