Indian government drafts law to tame India's chaotic traffic

Measures include a points system to punish repeat offenders and stiffer penalties for speeding and failure to stop at red lights

Traffic in Delhi, India. Photograph: Alamy

For decades, the chaotic use of  roads has been held up as a point of pride by locals who argued that, though unnerving, the free-for-all worked in a way that foreign practices such as staying in your lane or using your mirrors would not.

Now the government, hopes to tame the rickshaws, elephants, trucks, luxury SUVs, bicycles, camels, five-seater motorbikes, cows and buses that battle it out each day on the country's highways.

The objective is an ambitious one. Around 150,000 people a year die on India's roads, with hundreds of thousands more injured in around half a million recorded road accidents.

There is no ongoing system of verification of vehicle, no central national agency of road safety, and a culture of flouting the law. A huge surge in car ownership has not been matched by investment in roads, safety education, monitoring or policing.

The new bill aims to save 200,000 lives over five years and boost economic development, which has flagged in recent years.

The World Health Organisation has said the number of deaths and injuries on the roads in India costs the country around three percentage points of GDP growth annually. Transport ministry officials put the figure higher.

Modi's government has disappointed some observers, particularly in the business community, for failing to pass "big bang" reforms immediately. BJP officials say they are taking a "softly softly" approach with measures aimed at "putting the house in order, not burning it down".

One spur to the reform was the death of a minister in a car crash in Delhi days after the election win.

The draft law was posted online by the road transport ministry at the weekend with a request for user comments.

Full Story at:  http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/14/modi-law-india-traffic-roads