The International Road Federation (IRF), the Geneva-based global body working for better and safer roads worldwide, has written to Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari urging him to circulate the scientific guidelines developed by the Indian Road Congress (IRC) for identifying and treating the blackspots in the country.
“The blackspots / grey spots removal from the road network definitely makes for a distinct and measurable difference in the road safety outcome in the states as measured through their accident / crash data records. However, the present ongoing blackspot programme delivered till date is without any appropriate scientific guidelines for investigation and rectification being used by the field officers of MoRTH, NHAI and NHIDCL,” said K.K. Kapila, President, Emeritus, International Road Federation, in his letter to Gadkari.
“All countermeasures – short term, medium term and long term – adopted by the field officers assigned to remove blackspots are totally ad-hoc without any basis of scientific investigation for the blackspot / grey spot, uniformly across the country.”