The Chevella highway tragedy (Nov 3, 2025) that killed 19 people exposes India’s chronic road safety crisis — marked by poor infrastructure, weak driver certification, lax enforcement, and inadequate trauma care — demanding urgent systemic overhaul and accountability.

The Scale of the Crisis

• Massive Daily Death Toll: Nearly 400 people die on Indian roads every day, yet this fails to trigger urgent public or political response due to statistical numbing.
• Social Justice Concern: Most victims are economically vulnerable, including pedestrians, two-wheeler riders and bus passengers, showing that road safety is not just a technical concern but a matter of social equity and justice.

Causes of Road Accidents In India

• Human Error: Government reports frequently cite “driver’s fault” or human error, which overlooks deeper, systemic factors responsible for road accidents.
• Killer Infrastructure: Nearly one in five road accidents stem from unsafe infrastructure, including potholes, missing dividers, poor signage, hazardous curves, unclear lane markings, roadside obstacles, and the absence of crash barriers, especially in hilly regions.

Way Forward

• Reforming the Licensing System: The existing Regional Transport Office (RTO) system is plagued by corruption and weak oversight, where driving tests remain superficial—often limited to simple maneuvers like reversing or ‘S’-curve driving—resulting in untrained and unsafe drivers on roads.
• Global Benchmark: Germany follows a rigorous driver training and testing system, which includes night driving, snow driving and even psychological evaluations, recognising that unskilled drivers pose a direct threat to road safety.
• Privatization & Digitisation of Licensing: There is a need to privatise and digitise the licensing process, similar to the Passport Seva Kendra model operated by TCS.
• Golden Hour Response: Immediate medical intervention within the first hour i.e the Golden Hour—is critical to survival, yet India lacks rapid emergency response mechanisms across highways.
• Trauma Centre Availability: Despite Supreme Court guidelines and Good Samaritan Rules that protect individuals who help accident victims, states such as Bihar continue to have inadequate trauma centres, leading to avoidable fatalities.
• Failure to Meet International Commitment: India signed the Brasilia Declaration (2015), committing to reduce road accidents by 50% by 2020, but this goal remains unmet due to inadequate implementation of safety measures.

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Conclusion

Road accidents in India are not accidents but failures of planning, licensing, infrastructure, and emergency response—requiring systemic reform rather than blame on individual drivers.

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