Source: PIB
Revised road accident recording and reporting format
- To review the existing road accident data collection/reporting format so as to make recording and reporting of road accident data more accurate, objective and ensuring coverage of all relevant information, a Committee(under Mrs Kirti Saxena) was constituted consisting experts from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Delhi, IIT Kharagpur, World Health Organization (WHO), senior officers from Police and Transport Departments of States, Ministry of Health & Family Welfare and officers of the Ministry.
- On the basis of the recommendations of the Committee, a revised uniform road accident recording and reporting format has been adopted.
- After a series of deliberations, the committee has developed a uniform accident Recording Format to be adopted by the police in all states and UTs.
- The accident Recording Form has five sections designed to capture all relevant information like accident identification/location, road condition, vehicles involved and victim details. Section A contains accident identification details like location, vehicle type etc.
- Section B captures road conditions and features like culvert, gradient, pothole etc. Section C would capture details about the vehicle – both motorized and non-motorized, overloading etc.
- Section D would capture traffic violations by drivers and Section E would capture details about persons other than drivers involved in the accident.
- The form is simple and would be easy for the police persons at thana levels to understand and fill up. It also minimizes subjective elements.
- In addition to the above, the committee has also developed a set of corresponding annual road accident data Reporting Format consisting of 17 forms in which the states/ UTs would be required to furnish the annual road accident data to TRW of the Ministry within one month of the completion of a calendar year.
Why revised format?
- The recording of accident data is done in FIRs at police stations. These records are liable to be subjective as the police personnel fill it up according to their understanding and assign reasons for accidents as per their interpretation.
- There are apprehensions that due to limited technical understanding, the police persons recording the data are not able to recognize the role of road engineering defects, the nature of impacting vehicles and other such technical details that may have caused the accident.
- As a result, these aspects that are so vital for ensuring road safety but remain unreported or under-reported.
Various measures taken by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways
- The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways has issued notification dated 28.04.2015 and dated 03.09.2015 wherein for amendment of Central Motor Vehicles Rules, 1989 (CMVRs) the following crash standards have been notified:
- Automotive Industry Standard 098-2008 as amended from time to time for Protection of occupants in the event of an Offset Frontal Collision shall be mandatory for the new models from 1st October, 2017 and for all models 1st October, 2019
- Automotive Industry Standard 099 -2008 as amended from time to time for Side door impact for all passenger cars, Protection of Occupants in the event of Lateral Collision shall be mandatory for the new models from 1st October, 2018 and for all models with effect from 1st October, 2019.
- Further, the Ministry has also notified dated 07.12.2017 which Motor vehicles of category M1, manufactured on and after the 1st day of July, 2019 are to comply with the additional safety features like seat belt reminder, manual override, speed alert system, vehicle reverse gear sensor etc. and its requirements as stipulated in Automotive Industry Standard (AIS) 145 -2017.
- A new section 110A has been inserted through the Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Act, 2019, recently passed by Parliament, which has provision for recall of motor vehicles in case of a defect that may cause harm to the environment or the driver or occupants of such motor vehicle or other road users.
