tHis Government of India’s Road Transport and Highways Ministry declared January 2025 as the Road Safety Month, calling on all stakeholders to work together to make roads safer.
Around the world, approximately 1.19 million people die in road accidents each year. In India, between 2009 and 2019, road traffic crashes were the 13th largest contributor to the sanitation burden (India’s State of Road Safety Report 2023, IIT Delhi). Karnataka alone accounts for 8.6% of Indian road deaths in 2022. According to the Karnataka State Police’s annual report, the share of crashes increased by 9% in 2023, fatal crashes increased by 7%, while cases of serious injuries increased by 18%, compared with 2022.
Road safety is a public health issue. Not only does collapse cause emotional, psychological and economic trauma to the victim’s loved ones, but it also brings huge health care and economic burdens to the state and the country. According to a World Bank report, traffic accident injury and disability: a burden on Indian society, about 75% of low-income families and 57% of higher-income families reported a decline in total household income after the crash.
The United Nations Decade of Road Safety Action 2021-2030 aims to die by 2030. Often known as the Silence pandemic, road death and injury are unacceptable because they are preventable.
Research shows that even a well-designed evidence-based road safety campaign can reduce crashes from 8.5% to 9%. The mass media movement has long been used to change attitudes, improve individual risk perceptions and shape social norms to promote safer behavior. The World Health Organization reaffirmed the value of such targeted mass media campaigns.
One way to reduce road traffic injuries is to focus on key risk factors such as speeding, use of helmets and seat belts, and beverage driving. To ensure road safety, communication movements and reasonable legislation and law enforcement have the greatest impact. For example, Bogota, Colombia, implemented four campaigns to accelerate and strengthen law enforcement operations to strengthen speed management between 2018 and 2019. These movements are also supported by media strategies such as journalists’ studios to help build narratives about the importance of these actions. This resulted in a reduction of speeding to 21% during this period and helped prevent an estimated 73 deaths. These results resonate with citizens who realize that the saved lives could have been their own or their loved ones.
In India, Karnataka adapted global best practices by combining mass media campaigns with police enforcement. Between December 2023 and January 2025, the Karnataka Road Safety Authority implemented three mass media campaigns. In December 2023, the mass media campaign addressed speeding by sharing a moving story of a crash survivor who was permanently disabled due to a speeding driver. The sport is estimated to reach Rs 2.3 crore in adults in Karnataka. The evaluation of it shows that for 90% of respondents, the activity drew attention to speeding action and motivated them to comply with published speed limits.
The second campaign was launched in January 2024, focusing on the right helmet wear. The third implementation, from December 2024 to January 2025, is a mass media movement in teaching style that explains the collapse of science. It focuses on even a slight difference in speed that can determine the chances of collapse and its severity. Karnataka police have conducted targeted enforcement motivations while spreading key information through checkpoints and through social media.
Although these results are positive, a sport is not enough. The culture around Indian road safety must shift from inevitable accidents to unacceptable tragedies. Repeated messaging follows government-set speed limits and other risk factors such as correct helmet use can drive long-term behavior change. Law enforcement should be constantly focused on risk factors and strategies for improving compliance. Public narratives must be established to portray law enforcement as a preventive measure, not punitive measure. This way, the road can make everyone safer.
Dr. G. Guraj is an epidemiologist, public health consultant and road safety consultant; Vaishakhi Mallik is an important strategy for the Director of Communications of India
publishing – March 10, 2025 01:40 IS
