One tragedy after another, stop this bloodbath on India’s roads

Three deadly bus accidents across three states in the fag end of 2025 left in their wake a bloody trail of bodies and shattered families. On Oct 14, 20 people were killed when a bus in Rajasthan caught fire on the Jodhpur–Jaisalmer highway. Another 19 people were killed on Oct 24 when a bus in Andhra Pradesh's Kurnool district caught fire after hitting a drunk biker. And then, on Nov 4, a bus smashed into a tipper on the Chevella highway in Telangana, killing another 19 people.The toll — 58 people in less than a month — should have been enough for governments across India to put in place a system to stop this bloodbath.Predictably, nothing happened, barring a few enforcement drives against errant bus companies in the initial days. And now we have more blood on our hands. A fresh accident involving a bus and a tipper in Andhra Pradesh's Markapuram, early on Thursday morning, has left another 13 people dead.To understand how these tragedies are defined by more than just the deaths, let us look at just one family.One of the most heart-breaking photographs to emerge on the internet after the bloody accident at Chevella last year was that of three young women, decked in jewellery, in their best silk sarees, and smiling.This was not your classic disaster photograph of blood and gore, and yet it summed up a tragedy being played out on India's roads daily. Saipriya, Nandini and Tanusha were sisters between the ages of 19 and 21. They were daughters of a taxi driver from the small town of Tandur and were studying in Hyderabad to build a life, a future, for themselves.All three were killed while they were returning to Hyderabad after a break.That accident reduced the women to a number — 19. Those eyes filled with dreams, those smiles that beamed with hope, were nothing more than an inanimate number listing lifeless bodies and saying nothing of the trail of a shattered family left in its wake.Now think of the number of people killed in road accidents in India every year. According to the latest National Crime Records Bureau report, 1.73 lakh people lost their lives on the roads in 2023 in more than 4.4 lakh accidents. This means 475 people died daily; 475 smiles snuffed out daily; 475 pairs of eyes filled with hope shut forever, daily. And we only seem to be adding to the toll.To put these numbers in perspective, more than 5.33 lakh people were killed in India during the Covid-19 pandemic. In three years, road accidents will kill as many people in India as the pandemic did.The pandemic, of course, was not a phenomenon we could control, but we would be lying to ourselves if we say that road accidents too are driven by circumstances beyond our control. If anything, we are inertly witnessing the daily massacre of our own citizens on our roads.In November last year, the Supreme Court had considered formulating pan-India guidelines to prevent illegal eateries along national highways after an accident in Rajasthan's Phalodi claimed 15 lives.But road safety experts like Subroto Das, one of the first to launch an ambulance service for highway accident victims, insist that more than guidelines, enforcement of existing laws is needed.Das says that India has some of the best road safety rules, including a Good Samaritan law that rewards bystanders who help accident victims. There are also rules about having ambulances at toll plazas and ensuring tertiary hospitals and medical colleges along highways have well-equipped trauma centres.But what happens if the ambulances are missing or don't have the critical equipment to save lives? What happens if a state decides against implementing the Good Samaritan law, or if highway hospitals don't have trauma centres? Precious little.Even simple infractions, like commuters breaking a median for a shorter U-turn or localities putting up unauthorised speed bumps, are not dealt with either by governments or contractors paid for maintenance.Pointing to the numerous bus accidents, Vinod Kanumala, joint secretary of the Indian Alliance of NGOs for Road Safety, says most buses and trucks are either owned by politicians or by those politically connected. As a result, they often get away with breaking rules — modifying buses illegally, not using speed governors, and carrying commercial cargo illegally.The bus that caught fire near Kurnool was illegally carrying around 100 cell phones in its hold, which is meant only for passengers' bags. When the bus caught fire after hitting a motorbike lying on the highway, the phones likely exploded and added to the flames.Besides, many of India's highways are now of international standards, allowing high-speed travel. But if drivers are not trained to drive on such surfaces, you will end up with horrific pile-ups, like the one the Yamuna Expressway witnessed on December 16 last year, leaving 19 people dead.Immediately after the crash, global NGO International Road Federation said many drivers were "unaware that such surfaces (concrete) require specific tyre conditions and cautious driving practices, especially during low visibility." Not monitoring drivers in dense fog and not penalising reckless driving will only lead to more disasters.It is obvious no one learnt anything from the December 16 accident. Only on January 18, the Delhi–Lucknow National Highway in Bareilly saw a pile-up of 20 vehicles after a state roadways bus hit a truck because of low visibility, leaving one dead and 24 injured.In the end, it all boils down to enforcement of existing laws. One can argue that road safety is as much the commuter's responsibility as it is the government's. However, there is enough evidence to show that firm enforcement over an extended period leads to a change in behaviour. We don't need new laws. We need governments that are shocked by the sheer number of people dying in accidents to ensure laws are not broken.