The Telangana government’s decision to introduce mandatory road safety awareness training for new driving licence applicants is a welcome step. Any measure that encourages responsible driving deserves attention, especially at a time when urban traffic is becoming more complex and unforgiving.
India loses nearly 1.7 lakh lives every year in road accidents. Telangana alone records around 7,500 deaths annually, besides thousands who suffer injuries that permanently alter their lives. These are not just numbers. They represent families dealing with consequences that cannot be reversed.
The new proposal requiring licence applicants to undergo a structured awareness programme that explains accident scenarios, responsibility and consequences is therefore a step in the right direction. Driving must be seen as responsibility, not merely a qualification.
But a recent personal experience made me think about another aspect of road safety that is rarely discussed.
A few days ago, I was involved in a traffic situation at Road No.12, Banjara Hills, a clearly marked no-parking running stretch. A taxi had stopped on the wrong side and a passenger opened the right side door into moving traffic space. What followed was not unusual for a busy city road, but what stayed with me was how responsibility was initially understood.
Despite not violating any visible traffic rule, I found myself being asked to accept fault. The issue was not disagreement. Such situations happen. What concerned me was how easily conclusions can sometimes be drawn without fully examining the circumstances.
Instead of reacting, I chose to understand the reasoning. That meant going back to traffic responsibility principles and even referring to Supreme Court observations on road liability. It was not resolved in minutes. It took several rounds of discussion spread over a few days before the matter was finally seen from the correct legal perspective.
At one stage, I was informally advised it would be easier to compromise and settle the matter rather than continue the discussion. But the issue for me was never about convenience. It was about clarity and fairness.
This experience did not make me question the system. If anything, it made me realise how important continuous awareness is in fields where ground-level decisions directly affect citizens.
Hyderabad Police have built credibility in many areas of professional policing, particularly in cyber awareness and urban policing. Continuous training only strengthens such institutions. Young officers, especially those newly assigned to traffic duties, often deal with practical situations that go beyond textbook violations. Understanding liability involving illegal parking, passenger behaviour and moving traffic risks becomes essential.
If new drivers are now expected to undergo structured road safety awareness training, extending similar periodic sensitisation across enforcement levels could only improve confidence in the system.
Road safety is not only about preventing accidents. It is also about ensuring that when situations arise, responsibility is assessed correctly and fairly.
Cities are becoming denser. Traffic is becoming more unpredictable. In such conditions, awareness must become a shared responsibility between those who use the roads and those who regulate them.
Sometimes the road teaches lessons that rulebooks alone cannot.
