NEW DELHI: Road safety experts welcomed the Supreme Court’s landmark order on Friday declaring the right to walk on a designated footpath as a fundamental right and stressed the need for stronger enforcement and accountability amid a steady rise in pedestrian deaths across the country.
“The effectiveness of this important ruling lies in formulating the appropriate legal framework at the local, state and national levels. This also gives an opportunity to make the adoption of Indian Road Congress (IRC) standards for pedestrians mandatory,” said Geetam Tiwari of Transport Research and Injury Prevention (TRIP) and professor at IIT Delhi.
According to the 2024 road accident data released by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, pedestrians caused 36,526 deaths, making them the second most vulnerable group of road users after two-wheeler riders. People on foot account for 20.6% of all road deaths, while two-wheeler riders account for 46.2% across India.
Pedestrian deaths increased by 3.7% from 35,221 in 2023, and the figure reached 12,330 in 2014 – a stunning deterioration in road safety for pedestrians.
The risk to pedestrians was highest in the 50 cities with populations over 1 million, where they accounted for 25.2% of all accident deaths.
People aged 45-60 years (8,436 deaths) were most at risk, followed by the 35-45 age group (7,636 deaths) and the 25-35 age group (7,281 deaths).
The Supreme Court ruling came in a car accident compensation case involving the death of a pedestrian but has evolved into a broader constitutional examination of the rights of pedestrians 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, modifying crossings in cities with high pedestrian fatalities, and establishing rules for pedestrian-friendly road design in October 2025 when it heard a separate petition.
“Last year’s ruling had almost no impact. No one is responsible for monitoring adherence to timelines. Unless there is a legal framework and assigned responsibilities to the authorities, this will remain on paper only,” Tiwari said.
Road safety researchers have long argued that pedestrians remain among the most vulnerable road users due to lack of crosswalks, unsafe crossings, and poor enforcement of design standards.
While the October 2025 ruling sought to improve compliance with existing standards, experts said Friday’s ruling goes further by recognizing walking and access to crosswalks as enforceable rights.
Initiatives like Namma Raste in Bengaluru and national programs like Streets4People and Cycles4Change have proven that people-centric street design is both possible and necessary, said Chetan Sodai, an urban mobility and road safety expert working with the Assam government.
“However, these efforts have consistently hit the wall of car-centric priorities, where human vulnerability has been treated as an occasional inconvenience. Now to move from paper to pavement, the immediate next step must be the institutional reform proposed by the Supreme Court of establishing independent statutory regulatory bodies for pedestrian rights at the national and regional levels.”
