India’s Roads: Built to Connect, Failing to Protect

India’s Roads: Built to Connect, Failing to Protect
Jitendra Kumar
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India’s vast network of roads—meant to drive progress, connection, and mobility—has become a national crisis zone. With one of the highest rates of road traffic fatalities in the world, the gap between development and safety grows more evident each year. While new expressways and highways are being inaugurated at a record pace, the core issue of safety remains largely unaddressed.

The Cost of Rapid Expansion

India is rapidly expanding its road network, with expressways and highways being built to fuel economic growth. But in the race to build, safety standards are often compromised. Detailed Project Reports (DPRs) rarely undergo safety audits, and often, crucial elements like lane dividers, signage, lighting, and safe pedestrian crossings are omitted or poorly executed.

The result? New roads become death traps, particularly in their early months of operation.

Construction Zones and Incomplete Projects

Partially constructed roads and frequent detours pose major risks. Many roads remain under construction for years, with minimal traffic control. Drivers unfamiliar with the area, especially at night, are vulnerable to accidents due to sudden drops, loose gravel, or missing barriers.

Construction zones are poorly marked, especially in rural areas, where warning signs and speed limit enforcement are nearly nonexistent.

Commercial Vehicles and Driver Fatigue

A large percentage of road fatalities involve commercial trucks and buses. These drivers are often overworked, underpaid, and sleep-deprived, pushing long distances to meet delivery schedules. Fatigue-related accidents are common, yet there’s minimal regulation around driving hours, vehicle fitness, or periodic rest requirements.

Adding to this, vehicle overloading continues unchecked, further increasing the danger of mechanical failure or rollover crashes.

Inadequate Lighting and Signage

Many Indian roads, especially in non-metro regions, lack adequate street lighting. This contributes significantly to nighttime accidents. Drivers often have to rely on high beams, which leads to temporary blindness for oncoming traffic and can cause deadly head-on collisions.

In addition, road signs are often missing, damaged, or unclear—particularly in local languages or non-standard symbols. This makes navigation confusing, especially for those unfamiliar with the terrain.

Encroachment and Illegal Parking

Urban roads are plagued by illegal parking, street vendors, and encroachments that reduce lane width and force erratic driving behavior. In many cities, what was meant to be a four-lane road functions as a two-lane corridor, while pedestrians are forced onto the road due to blocked footpaths.

This results in a higher likelihood of accidents involving vulnerable road users such as cyclists, pedestrians, and two-wheeler riders.

Neglected Roadside Safety Measures

Guardrails, crash barriers, and reflective markers are basic safety elements in most developed countries—but they are inconsistently installed or poorly maintained in India. In accident-prone zones or near steep valleys, their absence turns minor mistakes into fatal crashes.

Highways often have long stretches without emergency lanes or lay-bys, leaving stranded vehicles dangerously exposed to oncoming traffic.

A Way Forward

While India has the ambition and resources to become a global leader in infrastructure, that growth must be rooted in safety. Engineering standards must evolve alongside expansion plans, and road audits need to be mandatory and transparent. Until then, India’s roads will remain a paradox: built to connect, but failing to protect.

Journalist Details

Jitendra Kumar
Jitendra Kumar is an Indian journalist and social activist from Hathras in Uttar Pradesh is known as the senior journalist and founder of Xpert Times Network Private Limited.