India’s Sweeping Street Arrange and the Surge in Vehicle Numbers
India hosts the world’s second-largest road network, covering over 6.6 million kilometers—surpassed as it were by the Joined together States. This broad framework includes national highways, state highways, locale streets, country courses, and an expanding number of advanced expressways. In spite of the noteworthy length, as it were almost 5% of this street organize comprises national and state interstates. However, these streets handle the lion’s share of vehicular activity, setting them beneath steady and gigantic pressure.
Over the past few decades, vehicle numbers in India have skyrocketed. Today, over 350 million registered vehicles—including cars, buses, and motorcycles—navigate this vast road network. This sensational increment in vehicular thickness is a coordinate result of financial development, urbanization, and rising middle-class yearnings for individual mobility.
However, this fast motorization has a drawback. The framework has battled to keep pace with the developing number of vehicles. Streets frequently endure from conflicting plan benchmarks, need of appropriate support, and visit activity congestion—especially in urban and semi-urban regions. Compounding these issues is the destitute requirement of activity laws, counting path teach, speed limits, and security regulations.The result is a genuine street security emergency. India witnesses one of the most noteworthy rates of street mischances in the world. Shockingly, there is one street casualty each three minutes, making activity mischances a driving cause of passing and damage across the nation.
Â
Human Error and Engineering Flaws: A Deadly Combination
When it comes to road accidents in India, driver behavior is often seen as the primary cause. Reckless driving, overspeeding, distracted driving, and fatigue are frequent contributors to fatal crashes. Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari has consistently emphasized that the core problem lies in human behavior, especially the widespread disregard for traffic rules. Many drivers ignore speed limits, traffic signals, and safety protocols, creating dangerous conditions for themselves and others.
However, human error is only one side of the coin.
Minister Gadkari has also brought attention to another critical yet often overlooked factor: engineering flaws in road construction. Poorly designed roads, the use of substandard construction materials, lack of safety features like guardrails, and inadequate signage have all played a role in India’s road safety crisis. In many cases, roads are not built to handle the current volume and speed of traffic, leading to dangerous curves, blind spots, and sudden merges. 
Since 2019, the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways has identified 59 major construction faults on national highways alone. More alarmingly, India has nearly 14,000 accident-prone “black spots”—locations with a high rate of crashes. Yet, only about 5,000 of these black spots have received permanent engineering fixes. The rest remain hazardous, putting millions of drivers at risk daily.
Secured up Dangers in Road System Design
Another regularly overlooked hazard is the improvement of tall medians or road dividers. As per arrange rules, these should to not outperform 10 cm in stature to ensure vehicle relentlessness upon influence. In reality, various are built removed taller. At tall speeds, a collision with such medians can result in tire bursts, incident of control, or rollover crashes.
Â
In common ranges, a different risk rises. Years of resurfacing without adjusting the shoulder height have raised some carriageways by 6 to 8 inches This makes a sharp drop. If a vehicle veers hardly off-road, the sudden tallness modify can lead to genuine hardship of control. Additionally, thruways passing through thickly populated ranges frequently require essential individual on foot affirmations. With no pathways, convergences, or obstacles, nearby individuals are revealed to fast-moving vehicles, through and through raising the danger of individual on foot incidents.
Â
Challenges in Authorization and Execution of Security Standards
India has a vigorous system of street security guidelines, covering everything from street plan and signage to crash boundaries and medians. These rules are well-documented and, if taken after, might altogether diminish mishaps and fatalities. In any case, the genuine challenge lies not in the policy—but in its execution and enforcement. Many infrastructure projects neglect or poorly enforce compliance with safety standards. Development contracts regularly emphasize the number of kilometers completed, or maybe than the quality or security of those streets. This output-driven approach energizes speed over exactness, with small respect for long-term security. As a result, Construction crews frequently disregard, modify, or misapply safety measures. 
The punishments for such non-compliance are regularly negligible, permitting substandard development hones to proceed with small result. There is constrained responsibility, and oversight is either conflicting or incapable. Numerous ventures need legitimate reviews or third-party security checks, making it simple for builders to cut corners. According to Prof. Geetam Tiwari of IIT Delhi, “Unless introduced precisely as indicated, crash obstructions can do more hurt than great.” Despicably situated or freely settled obstructions can increment the hazard of lethal mischances instep of avoiding them. This highlights a more profound issue: indeed when security components are show, off base execution can render them perilous.
Can Street Extension Unravel the Security Crisis?
India is quickly overhauling its street framework. A later government activity points to change over 25,000 kilometers of two-lane streets into four-lane interstates, with the objective of facilitating blockage and supporting financial development. But does more extensive and speedier fundamentally cruel safer?Experts stay cautious. Concurring to Kavi Bhalla, a street security analyst at the College of Chicago, extending streets regularly leads to higher vehicle speeds, which excessively imperil people on foot, cyclists, and motorcyclists—who as of now make up a expansive parcel of street clients in India. He cautions that India as often as possible duplicates Western street plan models, which do not reflect the special challenges of Indian activity, such as blended vehicle sorts, tall person on foot development, and unregulated intersections.
