By Krishen Mehta & Piyush Tewari

During the early hours of January 30, 2022, an SUV on India’s National Highway 48 jumped over the median and rammed head-on into an approaching truck. The driver had fallen asleep at the wheel and, with no crash barrier to stop the vehicle, all five occupants were killed. Traffic crashes like this one claim more than 1.35 million lives globally each year, but low- and middle-income countries shoulder 93 percent of these deaths (despite being home to only about 60 percent of the world’s vehicles). India alone, with only one percent of the world’s motor vehicles, accounts for 11 percent of global road crash fatalities; in 2020, India reported 3,66,138 road crashes and 1,31,714 fatalities.

Most road crash fatalities, though, are preventable.

In 2016, SaveLIFE Foundation (SLF), an Indian non-profit organization, introduced the Zero Fatality Corridor (ZFC) solution, which has, since its inception, delivered an unprecedented reduction in road crash fatalities on the stretches of road where it has been deployed. The ZFC solution has adapted and added to the Safe System Approach, traditionally a western concept, to make it suitable for Indian conditions and requirements.

The Safe System Approach recognizes that people are fallible and can make mistakes that may be fatal for them or their fellow road-users—irrespective of how well they are trained.

The ZFC model, in turn, is an innovation designed specifically to accommodate the realities, resources, and existing infrastructure in low- and middle-income countries, which are vastly different from their developed counterparts. For example, unlike developed nations, people in low- and middle-income countries often live closer to the highways, and use them on a daily basis on foot or through traditional and slower modes of transportation. This gives rise to high crash conflict areas.

Read the full article about innovating models for transportation safety by Krishen Mehta & Piyush Tewari at Stanford Social Innovation Review.