In a significant move aimed towards preventing youngsters from indulging in rash driving and performing bike stunts on public roads, the Madras High Court has spearheaded the conduct of a scientific study by Schizophrenic Research Foundation (SCARF) in Chennai in collaboration with SAMVAD.
Justice N. Anand Venkatesh was on Thursday informed by State Public Prosecutor (SPP) Hasan Mohamed Jinnah that that the Greater Chennai City Police got in touch with SAMVAD, an initiative of the Union Ministry of Women and Child Development, located at NIMHANS in Bengaluru, at the judge’s insistence.
Since the judge had insisted upon chalking out a plan for reforming the youngsters, who indulge in road rage, instead of treating them as criminal offenders; SAMVAD proposed a plan of action for carrying out a detailed study by a Chennai based organisation and obtained the consent of SCARF for the collaboration.
Thereafter a study proposal was prepared by experts from both SCARF as well as SAMVAD after taking note that 1.68 lakh people had lost their lives and 4.43 lakh had suffered injuries in 4.61 lakh road accidents reported in the country in 2022 though the figures could be much higher if the unreported accidents too were included.
The proposal also took note that of all motor vehicles in the country, the number of two-wheelers far outweigh the number of cars and motorcyclists form a large share of the total number of death victims in road accidents. The experts also found that overspeeding was one of the major reasons for the accidents.
Though the data about the involvement of young drivers (adolescents and young adults) in road accidents was not available in India, the experts found that a number of studies conducted abroad had found this age group (16 to 25 year old) to remain significantly over represented in fatal crash statistics.
The studies conducted abroad had found the youngsters to be involved in drag racing, tailgating and the male riders/drivers to have demonstrated more traffic citations, higher crash rates, report more dangerous driving and having greater intentions to speed than the female riders/drivers.
The experts also found the youngsters to display risk taking behaviours such as over speeding, drunken driving/consumption of alcohol and drugs prior to driving, jumping of red lights, use of mobile phones while driving, driving without valid driver’s license, not wearing helmets and so on.
Since various factors such as biological changes, peer pressure, individual differences in genetic composition, environmental exposures and cultural and familial influences contribute to such a phenomenon, the experts decided to conduct a detailed scientific study to understand the behaviour of young traffic offenders.
They also came up questionnaires through which the responses of the young traffic offenders could be collected for aiding the study. The 34-page long proposal of the expert team was placed before the ethics committee of SCARF on February 14, 2025 and the latter cleared it after not finding any ethical concerns, Mr. Jinnah said.
After recording his appreciation for both SAMVAD and SCARF for having devoted their time and energy in preparing a report that could help in dealing with young traffic offenders in a more matured manner in the future, the judge asked the SPP to apprise him of the developments on June 9, 2025.
Published – April 04, 2025 12:47 am IST
