Experts Warn Unchecked Dangerous Driving Keeps Costing Lives on Delhi Roads

Road safety management should move beyond simply counting crashes and traffic challans and instead focus on identifying dangerous driving behaviour before it results in fatalities, experts said at a national road safety symposium on Wednesday. The event was organised by the Institute of Road Traffic Education (IRTE) and the Union Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, where participants discussed the need for more targeted and preventive approaches to traffic enforcement.

IRTE president Rohit Baluja said a study conducted at two major Delhi junctions showed that the scale of traffic violations was substantially higher than what conventional enforcement mechanisms detect and prosecute. At Govindpuri, about 26,000 vehicles pass through the junction every hour, while 16,791 violations were recorded during the same period. At the Kotla Mubarakpur junction, nearly 24,000 vehicles cross hourly, with around 17,931 violations recorded.

Baluja said enforcement was largely concentrated on a relatively small number of offences, while dangerous moving violations were often overlooked because they were more difficult to identify and prosecute. He noted that more than 250 types of traffic violations exist under various laws, rules and regulations, while the Delhi Traffic Police focused on about 30 categories in 2023, according to the police report. He called for greater attention to faulty overtaking, dangerous lane changes, rash driving, inadequate following distances and violations involving Right of Way.

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He also said the effectiveness of traffic enforcement should be assessed by its impact on road-user behaviour rather than simply by the number of challans issued. Delhi issued nearly 7.3 million challans in 2023, according to Baluja, but road deaths declined by only about 10 that year before increasing again. Ministry of Road Transport and Highways data showed that Delhi recorded 1,457 road crash deaths in 2023, 1,551 in 2024 and 1,463 in 2025.

The experts stressed the importance of analysing near-miss incidents, conflict points and individual traffic violations at the micro level to identify risks before crashes occur. Baluja said near misses should be treated as warning signals and that scientific identification of such risks could allow authorities to intervene before they develop into fatal incidents. He said the ultimate objective of enforcement should be fewer traffic violations and, consequently, fewer road deaths.

The symposium also saw the launch of a Centre for Preventive Forensics, Traffic Management & Safety Sciences, along with a mobile laboratory. The initiative is intended to combine forensic auditing with traffic engineering to assess the nature, frequency and location of violations. Authorities can then determine whether specific risks should be addressed through road engineering, driver training, regulation or targeted enforcement, shifting the focus of road safety towards prevention rather than responding only after crashes occur.

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