SC for nationwide audit of footpaths, bans beacon lights

The Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered a nationwide audit of footpaths and road crossings in 50 cities and issued sweeping directions to curb road accident deaths, including mandatory helmet use, strict lane discipline, and a complete ban on unauthorised red-blue strobe lights and illegal hooters.

- Abraham Thomas

The directives came as the court addressed alarming statistics showing that pedestrians accounted for over 20% of India's road fatalities. According to the Road Accidents in India 2023 report, 35,221 of the 172,890 road accident deaths last year were pedestrians. In 50 cities with populations exceeding one million, 4,604 pedestrians were killed.

A bench of justices JB Pardiwala and KV Viswanathan passed the orders while hearing a public interest litigation filed by leading orthopaedic surgeon and public-spirited citizen S Rajeseekaran on road safety, along with an application by lawyer Kishan Chand Jain who drew the court's attention to the growing incidents of pedestrian deaths.