Making Navi Mumbai's Roads Safer

Do you think the Navi Mumbai roads are more accident-prone?

The Times of India's 2nd Jan edition had asked a question... "Do you think the Navi Mumbai roads are more accident-prone? If yes what you would suggest to make the city roads safe for commuting?". This wasn't published for I think TOI must have found this extremely long to put up as an answer or too serious for a 'goody-goody' question or it simply didn't have the space available.


I have the following suggestions...

A) Commitment
B) Construction and Repair
C) Education
D) Enforcement of 'No Tolerance' behavior


A) Commitment: All personnel of Civic bodies, including the Police should follow a top-down signing of charter to make Navi Mumbai roads safer.

B) Construction & Repair

• All repairs of roads including arterial roads, pavements, walkways, parking bays and bus-stops, and
  
• Construction of skywalks, dedicated lanes for cyclists (like in Delhi), clearing of pavements etc need to be done, including erection of seats at regular distances to allow pedestrians to rest.
  
• Construction of appropriate road-signs, and road-signs.
  
• 'Public Conveniences' at closer distances (Sulabh Shauchalaya).

C) Education

• Education drive in all schools & colleges, including private institutions like NIIT etceteras on traffic rules. The education has to be done in such a way that students take up onus on following rules, and at the least not allow those with them to flout rules. Children and youth are the biggest drivers of policy, and they are the future.
  
• Identifying the best applicable standards, and Relicense all 'driving schools' and get them at par with international levels.
  
• A month-long drive of 'no challan', where the traffic police offenders by educating them on the spot, and sending an intimation to them at offenders' homes. This is to be put in place for a certain set of violations, and can't work on violations that end up in occurence of an accident.
  
• Education of the 'enforcers' on handling 'violators' by showing a mix of compassion & high-handedness, and especially when to use which behavior.

D) Enforcement of 'No Tolerance' behavior

• After the 'education' month, all offenders will have to pay two kinds of fines, a) a monetary fine double (or more) of what is applicable on all offences, and b) a mandatory 'time' fine that all offenders would need to pay-up by attending an hour-long video on road safety.
  
• Identification of 'No Tolerance' zones across Navi Mumbai (like in Connaught Place in Delhi).