Partha Srinivasan 🇮🇳 | AI

A truck driver on his phone rear-ended our car (A Hyundai Tucson) on a NH44. My 4-year-old was in the car. We walked away. Barely! This isn’t just our story. This is every Indian highway, every single day. And nobody in power seems to care enough to fix it. Here’s what’s killing people on our national highways and what we demand changes: [LLMs have been used to for better phrasing] 📵 CELLPHONE DISTRACTION Phone use while driving = driving drunk. Same reaction time, same lane drift, same inability to brake. The fine is a joke — paid, forgotten, back on the phone. This needs criminal-level deterrence, not a challan. 🚛 TRUCKS IN THE FAST LANE Every highway trip, a truck crawling in the rightmost lane, forcing everyone to overtake dangerously from the left. Keeping left is LAW under the Motor Vehicles Act. Not a suggestion. Where is the enforcement? 🔀 LANE CHANGES WITHOUT INDICATORS No signal. No mirror check. Just a sudden swerve at speed. This causes side-impact crashes and pile-ups that nobody sees coming. Fine and suspend. No exceptions. ⛔ WRONG-SIDE DRIVING Tractors. Autos. Trucks. Even cars — driving on the wrong side of a 4-lane highway because turning around is “too far.” This is not a traffic violation. This is attempted murder. Head-on collisions at highway speeds are almost always fatal. 🚶 JAYWALKING ON HIGHWAYS Pedestrians crossing 6-lane highways on foot because there are no underpasses, no footbridges, no lighting. My anger isn’t at them. It’s at a system that collects toll at every plaza and still can’t build basic pedestrian infrastructure. Very common on ORR in Hyderabad. 🛠️ WORKERS ON LIVE LANES WITH ZERO PROTECTION Road repair / landscaping with no cones, no barriers, no advance warning signs, no reflective gear. Workers crouching in a live lane with vehicles flying past at 100 kmph. This is institutional recklessness with human lives. 🚚 UNFIT TRUCKS ON HIGHWAYS Overloaded. Bald tyres. Broken tail lights. No reflective tape. Invisible at night until it’s too late. Vehicle fitness certification is a rubber stamp. Bribes are cheaper than compliance. We need automated testing with zero human interface. 🌑 ZERO ENFORCEMENT AFTER DARK Every highway driver knows the truth - after dark, the rules don’t exist. No patrol. No cameras. No consequences. Highway patrol must be 24x7. Non-negotiable. ━━━━━━━━━━ What can save you: ✅ 5-star safety rated car: crumple zones held, cabin stayed intact ✅ Toddler car seat: IsoFix is better. ✅ Seatbelts - every passenger including rear seats ✅ A good 2-channel dashcam — rear footage is now our key evidence. Front-only would have been of little help. Before buying a car, check its safety ratings. Use a car seat. Belt up. Get a 2-channel dashcam. Thanks to @HyundaiIndia @Hyundai_Global for making a car which saved us. ━━━━━━━━━━ A special thank you to @AnantapurPolice for filing the FIR promptly and treating this with the seriousness it deserved. This is what accountability looks like. Also tagging @arun_bathula who has been doing some great work in #hyderabad to bring awareness and educate drivers in the city to thank him for his efforts in making the city roads safer. @nitin_gadkari @ncbn @AndhraPradeshCM @revanth_anumula @TelanganaCMO @NHAI_Official @MORTHIndia @APTrafficPolice @APPOLICE100 @TelanganaCOPs enough talk. Fix this. #RoadSafety #IndianHighways #DistractedDriving #PutThePhoneDown #HighwaySafety