Role of Automobile & Insurance Companies in Road Discipline At the outset, it may sound strange as to what role the automobile & insurance companies can have in ensuring traffic discipline on the road. But let us just figure out who are the stakeholders on the road who may have interest in reducing accidents? The general public, drivers, police, insurance and automobile companies are immediate stake holders. The errant drivers and missing police action on the road are equally responsible for chaos. Police is not seen except on few traffic signals. Dr.Satya Pal Singh, Police Commissioner, Pune, has initiated a number of projects to stream line traffic and may be he can take cognizance of these suggestions to initiate actions. Pune city corporation and traffic police are struggling to make two major roads one way in heart of the city. There were around 460,000 road accidents in the country in 2006, killing 105,749 people and injuring nearly 500,000. The estimated losses due to road accidents were Rs.550 billion (nearly $14 billion) a year, which amounted to 3% of India's GDP, according to the ministry of surface transport. (A) Automobile Industry: The automotive industry is definitely concerned about the accidents on the road and is continuously redesigning braking systems, signal systems and other safety equipments on vehicles. But they can do much more with Corporate Social Responsibility. They should firm up a list of driving rules, along with automobile associations, RTO, traffic police etc., which need to be publicized to bring up compliance levels. 1. Communication: Every advertisement for promotion of automobile related products either by company or by dealers should reserve a mandatory 20% space at the bottom to carry one message on driving rules in bold at a time. This should apply for print media, electronic media as well as hoarding on the roads. This is just like cigarette packets carrying statutory warning on the packets and in advertisements. 2. Quality of Driving Schools: Pune has 139 driving schools out of which only 7 are ‘A’ category, 25 are ‘B’ category, 100 are ‘C’ category and 7 are ‘D’ category. For Maharashtra state the same figures are 93, 508, 492, and 148 respectively. Why should we have four categories of driving schools as if they are imparting training for nursery, primary, middle or high schools? There can not be two ways to drive on the roads. One can at best understand
the difference of rural and city driving. So in any case the license holders from rural schools must again go to the city schools for fresh driving lessons & get fresh licenses for driving in cities if they wish to drive in cities. 3. Auto Industry Driving Schools: Automobile companies like Maruti have started their own motor driving schools. That is a good beginning. But are the instructors and learners observing all the rules on the road? All the automobile manufacturers must come out with driving schools and or existing driving schools must be upgraded and franchised by the manufacturers for strict compliance. There should be no driving school without accreditation of one automobile manufacturer. RTO must have list of such accredited driving schools from each manufacturer. The chances of corruption in such a system are least, if not negligible, since reputation of the automobile companies is at stake. 4. High Standards of Teaching & Compliance: What is expected out of automotive companies is a strict code of teaching and compliance for accreditation to driving schools. They need not invest huge sums in running such schools. Periodic reviews and supervision for teaching systems is all that is necessary to maintain high standards. The accreditation should be renewed every year by the school. In effect the automotive industry will be doing mentoring of driving schools to keep their vehicles safely plying on the roads. 5. Phased Implementation: The project can be first taken up in metros and mini metros. There should be distinct color and identity of licenses issued by new system and over a period of say one or two years all licenses other than these should be invalid for driving in the select cities. They may remain valid for other towns and villages till coverage extends to other places. After all other towns must get the markings on the roads also for successful implementation. 6. Outsource Compliance: The RTO & police department have not been successful in enforcing compliance with rules & regulations and that is the reason for the present mess. One need not comment on how the driving licenses are issued and how the traffic violators get away. If government of India can outsource processing of passports to TCS, why issue of mentoring driving schools can not be partly outsourced to automobile manufacturing companies? RTO should not issue licenses unless these driving schools approve the candidates. The licenses must have mention of the driving school for tracing the quality. (B) Insurance Companies:
The biggest stake in road safety is that of insurance companies who lose substantially every year in settling claims. While specific figures of claims settled in respect of automobile accidents in India are not available, the figure given above by ministry speaks a lot about what the insurance companies would have forked out. So it is in their interest to improve their profits through lesser claims and lesser number of accidents. So what can they do? 1. Hefty Penal Premium for Accidents: Once an insurance claim is settled, the erring party must pay higher premium for their insurance renewal when due irrespective of the company providing insurance cover. The premium should have an additional component of hefty penal premium of say 25% for having been responsible for accident in previous period of the policy. After an accident caused by a party, the insurance company of the affected party must endorse the policy of errant party with comments and damages settled and communicate to the insurance company issuing the policy, so that when policy comes up for renewal, the insurance company would collect additional premium for one year. Even RC Books are now smart cards and the accident info should be loaded on these cards for verification by any insurance company issuing a policy. If there is no accident in next year, the penal component should stand withdrawn thereafter. This will make the drivers aware of the costs for causing accidents. Next time they will watch out. 2. Communication: All the advertisements of the insurance companies targeted towards automotive vehicles should carry 20% space for a message on traffic rules to create awareness. Along with policy documents, they should issue do’s and don’ts of driving well illustrated with pictures and in local languages, not in fine print but as add on document. (C) Other Industries, Businesses, & Individuals: Communication: All the advertisements for any products or services on hoardings targeted at people passing on the roads must have mandatory 20% space reserved for a message giving traffic rule out of above list. Even birthday hoardings of politicians, cinema hoarding, and religious hoardings must fall in line. This would create mass awareness in shorter time. If you want to attract (rather distract) people on the road to your message, better spare some space for making road safer. The code should be enforced by the advertising industry associations, chambers of commerce and industry, Rotary, Lions, city corporations etc. This should be made
statutory just like cigarette. Perhaps more people die on road than by smoking!! (D) Educational Institutions: For every Indian bicycle is the first vehicle on the road where all he needs to do is balance himself and apply brake to stop. He does not have to observe any discipline on the road. It is free for all. The same culture is carried forward when he graduates to a powered two wheeler. By then he is expert in flouting all the rules with ease to beat the traffic. ‘Just do as you please’ is the mantra on the road. And precisely the same story carries on when he is a proud owner of a four wheeler or may be a driver of a Mercedes car. No big deal to write a blog on how to get a driving license. So the bottom line is ‘start the road sense development initiative’ at primary school level so that even when one drops out of the school, there is a fair chance that a formal exposure to road sense would have been inculcated. The students of high schools and colleges should also get higher level of inputs to make them more sensitized and responsible. Today the most educated, qualified engineers and professionals driving two wheelers are the ones in hurry on the road and are seldom bothered about discipline on the roads. (E) RTO & Police Force: Let us assume that the traffic police personnel (& drivers of all the government vehicles) manning the roads would be given the updates on the traffic regulations and sensitize them to new expectations. While traffic personnel on the roads should look out for erring drivers, there should be high visibility mobile squads on motorbikes roaming in the city to spot and stop the rule breakers. Unfortunately, police have earned themselves not a very clean public image on management of traffic on the roads. They are the best judge to decide what they should do to change for better. RTO & police can claim that we have all the regulations in place. Question then is why no implementation? (F) NGOs: Why some NGOs can not file a PIL in Supreme Court seeking effective implementation of the rules & regulations on the roads? Deaths of about one lakh people in accidents every year is not a good enough reason for the government bodies to perform? (Swine flu has so far claimed about 135 Deaths and whole nation is on high alert on war footing). Public will respond positively only when confronted with strict implementation. When
public can comply with advice on swine flu why not traffic which kill more people on the roads? We need political will to act. (G) Growth with safety: All the stakeholders should come together to evolve “Drive Safe Code” and enforce. Let automotive companies not make plans for doubling production in five years without addressing the safety issues not just in the vehicles but also on the road. And as long as vehicles are made insurance companies do not have to struggle to grow. It is derived growth. Can they do something to manage their businesses better by constructive strategic actions to bring down losses due to accidents? In above communication strategy no industry or individuals spend money from their pockets. All they have to do is shrink their space by 20% for their advertisements to carry a message on proper usage of the product. If automobile & insurance companies do not hear the wake up call, let them sleep and dream the chaos on the roads 5 years from now. May be they see a Jaguar being carried on the back of a Nano! Sweet Dreams! Vijay M. Deshpande Corporate Advisor, Strategic Management Initiative, Pune September 11, 2009 Scroll down for my other blogs Or visit www.strami.com