A study of two major Delhi junctions showed the scale of violations was far greater than what conventional enforcement detects and prosecutes

Published on: Sep 10, 2026, 09:36:18 IST

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Road safety management needs to move beyond counting crashes and challans towards identifying dangerous traffic behaviour and preventing fatalities, experts said on Wednesday at a national road safety symposium organised by the Institute of Road Traffic Education (IRTE) and union ministry of road transport and highways.

IRTE president Rohit Baluja said a study of two major Delhi junctions showed the scale of violations was far greater than what conventional enforcement detects and prosecutes. At Govindpuri, around 26,000 vehicles pass through every hour, with 16,791 violations recorded during the same period, while nearly 24,000 vehicles cross the Kotla Mubarakpur junction hourly, with about 17,931 violations recorded.

Baluja said enforcement remained concentrated on a relatively limited set of offences, while more dangerous moving violations were often overlooked because they were harder to detect and prosecute. “There are more than 250 types of traffic violations under the various Acts, Rules and Regulations taken together. However, as per the Police Report, the Delhi Traffic Police in 2023 focused on not more than about 30 categories of violations,” he said.

He said violations such as faulty overtaking, dangerous lane changes, rash driving and failure to maintain a safe following distance required greater attention, along with stricter enforcement of Right of Way.

Baluja said the effectiveness of enforcement should be measured by its impact on road-user behaviour rather than the number of challans issued. Delhi issued nearly 7.3 million challans in 2023, he said, but road deaths fell by only about 10 that year and subsequently increased again.

According to the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways’ Road Accidents in India reports, Delhi recorded 1,457 road crash deaths in 2023, 1,551 in 2024 and 1,463 in 2025.

“The purpose of traffic enforcement is to moderate road-user behaviour. The result should therefore be fewer violations and, ultimately, fewer road deaths,” Baluja said.

He said traffic authorities should analyse near-miss incidents, conflict points and violations at the micro level to identify risks before they result in crashes. “A near miss is a warning signal. If we can identify these risks scientifically and intervene early, we can prevent them from becoming fatal crashes,” he said.

The event also saw the launch of a Centre for Preventive Forensics, Traffic Management & Safety Sciences, along with a mobile laboratory, intended to combine forensic auditing and traffic engineering to identify the nature, frequency and location of violations and determine whether they can be addressed through engineering, training, regulation or targeted enforcement.

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