Mumbai Assistant sub inspector (ASI) Deepak Bhosle was completing some paperwork at the Bandra police station on May 19, when he received a call from the main control room informing him about an accident at the Bandra Reclamation flyover. The accident took place at 10.15 pm: a truck driver, M Shahu, lost control of his over speeding vehicle and hit an auto rickshaw. The impact toppled the auto over instantly killing its driver, 30-year-old Pappukumar Saav. His decapitated body on over the footpath, the head four feet away.
After receiving the call, Bhosle alerted the ambulance and called his superior, before rushing to the spot. A first responder for the past 15 years, he has seen several accidents and crime scenes, but this accident was something else, he said. “I close my eyes I see that auto driver’s head four feet away, staring at his own lifeless body,” he said. “This is a part of my job and I cannot afford to chicken out. It is my responsibility to conduct the panchnama [spot report] and get all details from witnesses so that the criminal can be brought to task,” Bhosle said. The police arrested Shahu a day after the accident.
Police officers, fire bridge officials and ambulance and paramedical staff are first responders at any crash or accident site and receive the hard knocks from training on the job. Now, in a bid to reduce fatalities on state and national highways, the Maharashtra highway traffic police have begun to impart safety training and life-saving techniques to industrial workers, across the state, as they witness crashes regularly and could help save more lives.
The project started in the last week of May as a pilot by the Ambad Industries and Manufacturers Association (AIMA) in Nashik, with over 3,000 industrial workers as members.
The training comprises two aspects: safe driving and learning traffic rules, and first response techniques, like providing Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) and how to handle an injured person and take them to the hospital without causing further damage to their injuries.
“Till now we have trained 650 workers and aim to train over 111,000 in the Nashik industrial belt alone. After Nashik and Aurangabad, we will take this training to other industrial belts across the state,” said Rajeev Choubey, risk management specialist from Resilient India, a Mumbai-based non-government organisation which is helping the Maharashtra traffic police conduct the trainings.
Kulwant Sarangal, additional director general, Maharashtra traffic police, said that the project — Hazard Vulnerability and Risk Analysis —will also identify black spots in industrial belts, and the training will soon include workers across the state.
According to data released by the ministry of Road Transport and Highways, two-wheelers and pedestrians accounted for 61% of crash-related deaths on state and national highways in 2020 (the year for which the latest data is available). Maharashtra, which has the largest roads network (626,491 km) and the highest number of registered motor vehicles in the country (35.39 million) recorded a fatality rate 3.6 % which is lower than the national average of 5.1%. Fatality rate is used to explain road accidents relative to vehicular population in the country. It is measured by the number of road accidents fatalities (persons killed) per 10,000 vehicles.
In 2020, the number of crashes decreased by almost 18.5% from the previous year (this was true for all states and can be attributed to the pandemic-induced lockdowns that stopped most vehicular traffic). However, road crash severity increased by 6.8% in 2020 from the previous year. Road crash severity refers to the number of deaths per 100 accidents or crashes, and Maharashtra was the second-highest in the country. Over-speeding accounted for 69.3% of deaths, 72.5% of crashes, and 73.4% of injuries on highways across the country.
Choubey said that the areas near highways are peri-urban sites where a large number of industry workers live, and many travel on two-wheelers to their places of work but don’t always know or follow the traffic rules. At the same time, they also witness a number of such accidents.
“We have also trained Industry workers in first-response techniques and what steps to take during the golden hour to prevent loss of life. They are the ones who witness crashes on their everyday route,” Choubey added.
Such a project gains significance as first responders who witness deaths are often traumatised by the loss of lives and their own inability to have helped.
In fact, on-the-job training helps many deal with the agony their job invariably brings, even if they don’t speak about it. “Seeing a child’s body is the most traumatic experience,” said Anil Kadam, senior police inspector of Borivli Government Railway Police (GRP) who has seen mangled bodies on railway tracks. Head constable Rajendra Patole (40), who heads the Borivli GRP’s ADR (Accidental Death Report) branch recalled that the first time he saw a body on the tracks, he did not eat for four days. That was 22 years ago. Now, Patole has photos of the accidents on his phone, which he refers to while writing up reports. “On-the-job training is all we have as a superior officer always accompanies the newbie to instruct and train him on handling of bodies. They also help us cope with the stress of what we see.”
“Now I have trained over 50 constables and and I’m still standing,” added Patole.