Drive Safe India Initiative: Improving Safety of Truck Drivers and Goods Transport

In India, more than 11% of all fatalities from traffic accidents, or over 16,000 lives, involve commercial vehicles Given the loss of life, and the costs of damage to goods and property, there is an urgent need to reduce, and eventually eliminate this unnecessary loss of life. Shell, Michelin, and IRF Geneva have come together with a new initiative "Drive Safe India" (www.drivesafeindia.org) to improve all aspects of safety associated with transport of goods on Indian roads. The goal of the Drive Safe Ind
July 14, 2017 Read time: 2 mins

In India, more than 11% of all fatalities from traffic accidents, or over 16,000 lives, involve commercial vehicles

Given the loss of life, and the costs of damage to goods and property, there is an urgent need to reduce, and eventually eliminate this unnecessary loss of life.

763 Shell, 720 Michelin, and 1201 IRF Geneva have come together with a new initiative "Drive Safe India" (www.drivesafeindia.org) to improve all aspects of safety associated with transport of goods on Indian roads.

The goal of the Drive Safe India Initiative is to develop a voluntary industry code to reduce traffic accidents and fatalities by transforming:

1) commercial vehicle standards, 2) driver care and training, 3) vehicle financing, 4) insurance, and 5) road haulage contracts. As part of this initiative, a database of "safe" drivers and haulage companies will be developed. The industry code will be based on pan-India research and best practices from around the world. The impact of this initiative will be monitored using real time and collected data.

Once ready, the Drive Safe India Code will be adopted and used by the participating partners and is expected to become an industry standard used by the majority of, if not all, corporates, across all sectors of the Indian economy. The adoption of this code is expected to lead to a large reduction in the number of truck accidents and associated fatalities.

In the coming months, the launch partners of the Drive Safe India Initiative will seek to increase the number of partners to join this initiative.

The Drive Safe India Code will be formally launched at CROSSROADS World Road Meeting 2017 that is to be held in Delhi, India from 14 – 17 November 2017.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Pay attention to The Ray, urges WheelRight’s John Catling
    July 17, 2017
    Development of the connected and sustainable highways is moving quickly in the US and the Far East but progress in Europe is much less impressive. One example of a connected highway that offers an interesting model for European transport planners and policymakers is The Ray, a 29km stretch of Interstate 85 in the state of Georgia. Originally established by a charitable foundation, The Ray offers an inspiring vision of a sustainable highway, even for the near future. Drivers crossing the state line from Ala
    Read More
  • A new event is preparing the asphalt industry for tomorrow’s world
    September 11, 2018
    An inaugural event for the European bitumen industry urged attendees to look to the future - Kristina Smith reports What will tomorrow’s roads look like? Will lanes be narrower, will the road charge vehicles as they drive on them, will they collect data, will they be self-cleaning and de-polluting? All these questions and more were pondered at a two-day conference in Berlin, entitled ‘Preparing the asphalt industry for the future’. It was the first such event for Eurasphalt & Eurobitume (E&E), and set a
    Read More
  • ITF and FIA launch road safety co-operation on traffic crash data
    May 22, 2014
    A three-year programme has been agreed intended to improve the collection and use of traffic crash data. This landmark agreement forms part of the joint effort for UN’s Decade of Action for Road Safety. The partnership which will focus on the improvement of road safety data and its analysis was agreed between the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA) and the International Transport Forum (ITF). FIA President Jean Todt signed the agreement together with the ITF Secretary-General José Viegas at an
    Read More
  • Digital construction drive
    May 22, 2025
    A digital construction drive for the future.
    Read More

Highlighted Content