To promote safe driving, encourage good road behavior, education, awareness , build an ecosystem that supports road safety, and offer discounts and incentives to drivers who fully comply with the traffic rules are key to reducing road accidents in the country .

“In India most of the road accidents take place due to human errors like  over speeding, fatigue, stress and poor driving skills, majority of which can be easily controlled with technology, education awareness and incentivising or rewarding the drivers for their good driving behaviors, The award has more positive impact than penalizing them” said Mr Akhilesh Srivastava , project head of road safety, World Economic Forum, While speaking at a webinar ‘ Role of stakeholders in creating awareness for road safety’ organised by the International Road Federation – India Chapter (IRF-IC)

“Incentivising drivers through  assessing drivers’ behavior through a set of performance indicators can enable the delivery of new “Earn-How-You-Drive” plan becoming popular world-wide and helping to improve road safety overall.” said Mr Srivastava.

 “About 80 percent of road traffic in the country is of two-wheelers mostly motorised and of pedestrians but none of the road is designed for them by the stakeholders including road making agencies in the country .No enforcement rules are effective on these vulnerable road users  in the country. The enforcement agencies are only visible or effective during rush hours from 9.00 AM till 6.00 PM. The enforcement should be 24X7 if not manually through electronic traffic control devices” said Mr P.K.Sikday, Advisor, International Road Federation- India chapter while speaking at the webinar.

“The national road safety stakeholders especially the road making agencies need to construct zero fatality corridors as roads have to be safe. We need technology to build safer roads to  assist drivers  and systems in vehicles to prevent accidents apart from the advanced traffic management system on roads for better enforcement.” Said Prof. Manorranjan Parida, Director, Central Road Research Institute (CRRI) speaking on the occasion .

“Digital technologies are making quick inroads in the road safety sector, with the support of Artificial Intelligence (AI) can help check fatigue, drowsiness of drivers and give them real alerts which help in saving lots of accidents Apart from alerts these digital technologies can help track driver behavior like over speeding, sudden breaking , fuel saving, overtime driving etc. This can help in rewarding the drivers  “ said Mr Jehaan Kotwal, director, Goodmind , an Non government body working for safety of truck drivers .

Others who were present on the occasion included Ms Rajni Gandhi, General Secretary, TRAX road safety NGO, Vandana Lakhanpal, Founder, Prabhav Foundation and Mr Somenath Ghosh , a road safety expert.