The Cost of Looking Away
I woke up to the same kind of news that has become tragically routine: a young rider fell into an unbarricaded excavation and lay there for hours before help arrived. In this case, a labourer who first noticed the injured rider has been arrested for not informing authorities — but the deeper question is not only who is punished after the fact, but why the system allowed the sequence of silence and delay to happen at all.[^1]
What I feel, as a citizen
I feel grief for the life lost. I feel anger at the thin line between an accident and a preventable death. And I feel weary of the recurring pattern I have written about before: infrastructure left unsafe, accountability diffused, and the public paying the price for "crimes of omission." In earlier pieces I argued for a legally enforceable framework to hold service providers and public servants responsible for systemic negligence — a Service Liability approach — precisely because small lapses too often become fatal outcomes.[^2][^3]
The anatomy of a preventable tragedy
Here’s how these incidents typically unfold:
- An excavation or hazard is created as part of public works.
- Safety basics — barricades, reflectors, lighting, guards — are not placed or are inadequate.
- Several people notice something wrong but none call emergency services (or calls are delayed / ignored).
- The person in peril is found only after long hours; by then rescue opportunities have narrowed.
- Investigations follow, arrests may be made, suspensions issued — but the structural fixes lag.
Each link in this chain is an opportunity to prevent the next link. The moral hazard lies in how we treat those missed opportunities: as unfortunate facts of life, rather than as systemic failures deserving design, legal and institutional remedies.
What we need — immediate and structural
Short-term, practical steps that must become standard on every urban works site:
- Mandatory, visible barricading, reflectors and powered lighting for any new excavation after sunset.
- Real-time geotagged safety check-ins by contractors — uploaded to a public dashboard.
- A simple helpline+SMS workflow for bystanders that auto-logs time/location and alerts the nearest PCR/rescue team.
- CCTV / camera feeds for busy corridors, with priority access for emergency response teams.
Longer-term reforms I’ve recommended before, and repeat now:
- A Service Liability framework that assigns clear legal responsibility (and penalties) to contractors, municipal officers and project owners when safety lapses cause harm.[^2]
- Standardized, tech-enabled audit trails for public projects: who dug, who authorized, who inspected, and when.
- Protect and incentivize the whistle-blower / witness: small rewards or legal protections for the person who reports an unbarricaded hazard immediately.
Technology can help — but it isn’t a substitute for governance
We can deploy sensors, geofencing, crowd-reporting apps, and AI triage for emergency calls. These tools raise the probability of early detection. But technology without governance is theater. We must marry sensor networks with clear legal duties, timely enforcement, and public transparency.
A civic duty, not merely a legal one
Blaming individuals for not calling in an emergency misses the point: systems shape behaviour. If a night-time excavation has no light or barricade, if guards have no training, and if the public assumes someone else will call, tragedy becomes likely.
We should push for cultural as well as legal reforms:
- Make community awareness campaigns about reporting hazards routine and visible.
- Encourage local resident associations and contractors to do rapid safety audits after work starts each day.
- Insist that municipal project approvals require a documented, verifiable safety plan with penalties for non-compliance.
A personal ask
If you live in a city, learn the emergency numbers, keep quick-access location sharing on your phone enabled, and if you see an unmarked excavation at night — call. The cost of looking away is a human life.
I have written about the same structural failures before, and about the need for a Service Liability approach and technology-enabled accountability — ideas that are painfully relevant again here.[^2][^3]
[^1]: Report on the Janakpuri pit death and subsequent arrests (news coverage).
[^2]: My earlier piece arguing for a Service Liability framework: "Needed : a Service Liability Act" (Hemen Parekh). (See: http://myblogepage.blogspot.com/2019/06/needed-service-liability-act.html)
[^3]: My writing on road safety, sensors and institutional solutions: "Young and dying on roads" and related posts. (See: http://myblogepage.blogspot.com/2021/02/young-and-dying-on-roads.html)
Regards,
Hemen Parekh
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