Staff Reporter
GUWAHATI: Police investigations of accident cases mostly hinge over faults on the part of the driver, like overspeeding, conveniently missing non-driver factors like road engineering, infrastructure gaps, etc. Such unscientific police investigations often fail to identify the actual reasons behind accidents.
According to an all-India report on road safety, the police collect reports on speed, driving errors, etc., from eye-witnesses. They hardly go for deep scientific reasons that may cause accidents. Accidents may occur due to systematic engineering and governance failure, lack of or poor signage, potholing and uneven carriageways, unscientific or damaged barriers, inadequate lighting, unscientific speed-breakers, dangerous entry and exit cuts, etc.
The report further said that contractors and road-owning authorities like NHAI (National Highway Authority of India), NHIDCL (National Highway and Infrastructure Development Corporation Ltd), state PWD, etc., are rarely involved as culpable parties or subject to scrutiny. Failure in road design and maintenance is underreported, and the blame goes to drivers and the victims.
In the past three months, Assam witnessed as many as 4,219 accidents, involving over 1,000 fatalities. The police registered mainly drivers’ and victims’ faults in their investigation reports and never went beyond these two factors. This shows that investigators are more inclined toward framing charges than actual road-vehicle behaviour investigations.
According to an IIT Delhi report on road safety, the police investigation reports on accidents are apparently incomplete. The statistics of the police do not have the forensic ability to record geometrical and design flows. Apart from these, the police and the Regional Transport Department have a limited number of staff to conduct inspection and investigation at the district level.
According to the India status report on road safety for 2024, Assam has seen the death rate rise by 20 percent or more in the preceding five years. “FIRs can only provide limited crash details. India needs to invest in establishing state-level units to systematically collect reliable data on fatal crashes by combining information from police reports, hospitals and road-owning agencies. State and central governments need to prioritize the scale-up of road safety interventions.
The report said that the states were assessed for initiatives taken to rectify black spots on national highways and state highways, and many states have failed to follow them or followed them poorly. Safety audits have been conducted on 50-75 per cent of national highways in Assam, while PWD roads have undergone audits for less than 25 per cent.