Members of an agricultural university in Ratnagiri who were on the ill-fated bus, which fell into a gorge at A... Read More

NEW DELHI: Nearly 29 people died daily in road accidents involving buses in 2017 with Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka and Kerala topping the list. Almost 86% of those killed were bus passengers themselves, according to government's own data.

While this has been the trend for the past three years, the recent incidents of buses falling into the gorges in Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Maharashtra points to how despite the government claims to make hill roads safer through measures like installation of crash barriers, not much has been done on the ground so far.

Official data shows that a total of 10,651 people were killed in road accidents involving buses last year and out of this 9,069 were bus users. Tamil Nadu had reported maximum bus-related road deaths at 1,856 followed by Uttar Pradesh where 1,406 people lost their lives in similar accidents. Karnataka reported about 800 deaths in accidents involving buses.

Road safety experts said in any accident it's easy to put the blame on the driver rather than getting to the root causes of fatal crashes. "The question is where to hit the nail and every agency responsible passes the blame to each other. In fact, several factors including drivers' training, driving conditions, road geometrics, vehicle fitness, overcrowding and poor enforcement of rules contribute to accidents involving buses. So, you need to target each of these factors," said transport planner Professor N Ranganathan.

Experts have been demanding mandatory scientific investigation of fatal accidents so that exact corrective measures can be taken rather than closing the cases by either blaming the driver or the road condition. They also pointed out that the issue of making roads safe should not stop at policy level rather it should be a daily affair with everyone doing their part efficiently including those who put road markings.

"For years we have been pushing this single point of investigating accidents scientifically. In any developed country, accidents like the recent ones would have forced any government to find out what went wrong. But here we have only condolences from our leaders and a few lakhs of compensation for each life lost," said road safety expert Rohit Baluja.

