With 36.5K deaths a year, SC ruling on pedestrians hailed

NEw new delhi: The sublime margaret court’s watershed prescribe on Friday declaring the right to walk on a demarcated footpath a fundamental right has been welcomed by road safety experts who stressed on the need for stronger enforcement and accountability amid a steady rise in pedestrian deaths across the country.“The effectiveness of this important judgement lies in framing appropriate statutory framework at local, state and national level. This also gives an opportunity to make adoption of Indian Road Congress (IRC) standards for pedestrians mandatory,” said Geetam Tiwari of the Transportation Research and Injury Prevention (TRIP) Centre and professor at IIT Delhi.According to the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways’ (MoRTH) 2024 road crash data, pedestrians accounted for 36,526 fatalities, making them the second most vulnerable category of road users after two-wheeler riders. Persons on foot accounted for 20.6% of all road crash deaths, while two-wheeler riders accounted for 46.2% across India.Pedestrian deaths increased 3.7% from 35,221 in 2023, and the figure was 12,330 in 2014 — a staggering deterioration in road safety for those on foot.The risk for pedestrians was higher in the 50 cities with million-plus population — they accounted for 25.2% of all accident fatalities.Those in 45–60 years (8,436 deaths) were at the highest risk, followed closely by the 35–45 age group (7,636 deaths) and the 25–35 age group (7,281 deaths).The apex court ruling came in a motor accident compensation case involving the death of a child pedestrian but evolved into a broader constitutional examination of the rights of walkers and the duties of public authorities.The court also issued a detailed set of directions to improve pedestrian safety, including mandatory compliance with IRC standards, retrofitting crossings in cities with high pedestrian fatalities and framing rules for pedestrian-friendly road design in October 2025 when it heard a separate petition.Tiwari said: “Last year’s judgment has had almost no effect. No one is responsible for monitoring compliance of timelines. Unless there is a statutory framework and responsibilities allocated to authorities, this will remain on paper only.”Road safety researchers have long argued that pedestrians remain among the most vulnerable road users because of missing footpaths, unsafe crossings and poor enforcement of design standards.While the October 2025 judgment sought to improve compliance with existing norms, experts said Friday’s ruling goes a step further by recognising walking and access to footpaths as enforceable rights.Chetan Sodaye, an urban mobility and road safety expert working with the Assam government, said initiatives such as Bengaluru’s Namma Raste and national programmes like Streets4People and Cycles4Change have demonstrated that people-centric street design is both feasible and necessary.“Yet, these efforts have consistently hit a wall of car-centric priorities, where human vulnerability was treated as an incidental nuisance. Now to move from paper to pavement, the immediate next step must be the institutional reform the apex court suggested which is to establish independent, statutory regulatory bodies for pedestrian rights at national and regional level,” he said.