By any measure, India’s roads are among the most dangerous in the world. Each day, nearly 500 lives are lost to road accidents. That’s one life every three minutes ~ an astonishing toll in a country priding itself on rapid infrastructure growth and global aspirations. Yet, for all the focus on expressways and economic corridors, a silent epidemic continues to unfold on our streets, highways, and village roads. What makes this crisis even more tragic is that it is entirely preventable. At the heart of the problem lies a fatal cocktail: flawed road engineering, reckless driving, inadequate traffic law enforcement, and a disregard for basic safety norms. India’s traffic is a chaotic mélange of motor vehicles, two-wheelers, bicycles, carts, animals, and pedestrians, all jostling for space.

This complex ecosystem demands intelligent, locally-sensitive infrastructure, not a blind replication of Western road models that are ill-suited to Indian realities.........

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