Road Rage: Riding Wheels Wearing The Mask Of Death

The actual fact of the matter is that over two lakh deaths occur in India due to road accidents each year. These figures are as per the Global Road Safety Report, by the World Health Organisation.

A couple of years ago, this figure stood at 1.25 million, globally. Translated into simple terms, it means one person dies due to some form of road rage or another in every 25 seconds, somewhere in the world.

It is also somewhat of a known thing that Indian road safety enactments are not in sync with the required risk cutting factors for accidents. In other words, we do not maintain our standards for regularizing speed limits, cutting short drunk driving, helmet-usage and ensuring the safety of children on our roads.

On an earlier date, it has been reported, that even for making sure that drivers and passengers alike wear their safety belts, we stand at four on a scale of ten. For the entire world, it is said that just 28 countries, with about 449 million inhabitants, which is only about seven percent of this planet’s population, follow strictures for enacting the earlier mentioned risk factors.

More facts reveal that more than one-third of all road and traffic related deaths in low and middle income nations happen among pedestrians and cyclists, taken together.

For knowledge’s sake, it is wise to remember that road raging activities are those which involve: speeding and aggressive acceleration; tailgating; cutting others off; weaving in and out of traffic; forming a convoy sort of structuring to block access to a traffic lane; honking or flashing lights excessively; rude gestures; verbal abuse; threatening to use a deadly weapon; revengeful feeling; hitting a person or vehicle with a weapon; deliberately hitting another person, vehicle or object with your own vehicle.

Road traffic safety, the balm for stemming such a rot, actually stands for the procedures which cut short any risks which can endanger the life of people on roads.

Incidentally, the UNECE looks after 57 transport-related international legal instruments. These are looked at by governments of countries and they may choose to follow them; these rules cover various aspects like traffic rules, roads signs and signals, construction and technical inspection of vehicles, road infrastructure, border crossing facilitation, driving times and rest periods for professional drivers and safe transport of dangerous goods and hazardous materials.

As it stands to reason, it is the responsibility of each and every individual out on the road to ensure safety for herself or himself and all others who he or she comes in contact with, while travelling. Sad to say, this is not how real life works.

Now is the time, when road rage is maximizing everywhere, that we, in our own individual capacities, awaken to the importance of maintaining a set decorum while we drive or are driven around.

It should be well and properly understood that no other factor would work as well as this, in bringing about our and our fellow travellers’ wellness.