5. Why India’s Roads Kill - The Human Behavior Problem | Dr. Mansha Swami | Dr. Sachin Kumar

India's road safety problem isn't just about roads - it's about culture, enforcement, design, and the human behavior nobody wants to talk about. Dr. Mansha Swami breaks down why so many of our traffic fixes fail and what actually changes crash outcomes, mobility, and everyday safety. With host Dr. Sachin Kumar, Dr. Mansha brings a rare cross-continental lens from India and the United States, drawing on work in transportation planning, road safety auditing, active mobility, transit evaluation, and emerging mobility technologies. She traces her journey from pavement design to traffic engineering, transit operations, and human factors, showing why transportation is one of the few fields where engineering, economics, policy, and public behavior collide every day. You'll discover: Why India cannot simply copy-paste Western road design and expect the same results How heterogeneous traffic, weak lane discipline, and vulnerable road users create a different safety problem altogether Why community engagement can solve deadly local issues faster than top-down engineering The role of price-pinch enforcement, body cams, and tighter driver education in changing behavior Why road safety needs to be taught early, across STEM and non-STEM education, not only in professional training Mansha also explains why some of India's best transportation wins, like Delhi Metro and Ahmedabad BRT, work so well and why they are worth studying, without pretending that every city can be compared on the same terms. She goes further into connected vehicles, self-driving systems, cybersecurity, data quality, GIS, and why the future of transportation depends as much on interdisciplinary thinking as on infrastructure. If you care about safer cities, better mobility, smarter policy, or the future of transportation in India, this conversation gives you a grounded, practical look at what needs to change next - and why the smallest interventions can sometimes save the most lives. Want me to make this into show notes next? Dr. Mansha Swami is a transportation professional whose journey has moved across classrooms, research labs, consulting assignments, and real-world mobility challenges in both India and the United States. An academician, researcher, advisor, consultant, Road Safety Auditor, and lifelong curious learner, she brings more than a decade of experience in transportation engineering and planning. She currently works as a Research Engineer with the National Transportation Center and the SMARTER Center at Morgan State University in Baltimore, Maryland. Her work spans road safety, active transportation, multimodal mobility, travel behavior, transit evaluation, and emerging transportation technologies. Her academic journey includes a Ph.D. in Transportation Planning and Engineering from IIT Roorkee, an M.Tech. from SVNIT Surat, and postdoctoral research experience at the University of Texas at Arlington. She has also taught engineering students at some of India's best engineering colleges and advised government, semi-government, and private organizations on transportation planning, traffic, highways, and road safety. What continues to fascinate her most is the human side of transportation, which focuses on how the decisions we make about streets, mobility, and infrastructure ultimately shape people’s everyday lives. She believes that good transportation engineering begins with observation, curiosity, and learning from people as much as from data. Mansha lives with her family in Hunt Valley, Maryland. She has an unusually sharp knack for remembering car registration numbers. Dr. Sachin Kumar is Assistant Professor at the Cluster Innovation Centre, University of Delhi, and founder of the Intelligent Information Systems Group. He has been a Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard University. His research spans AI/ML/LLMs, AI for Social Good, AI for climate accountability and sustainability, and AI Safety and governance, and he has authored 40+ publications and 4 books on AI and contributed to G20 policy discussions. Social Media Handles: Dr. Sachin Kumar/Prof Sachin Kumar | #TheAIProfessor    / @profsachinkumar1     / profsachinkumar     / profsachinkumar     / profsachinkumar     / profsachinkumar   https://profsachinkumar.com/ #Manshaswami #RoadSafety #India #TheHumanProject #TransportationEngineering #UrbanMobility #TrafficEngineering #सड़कसुरक्षा #RoadSafetyIndia #UrbanPlanning #SustainableMobility #PublicTransport #DelhiMetro #Thehumanproject #humanprojectpodcast #podcast #SmartCities #HumanFactors #Podcast #roadsafetyindia, #indianroadaccidents, #trafficengineering, #transportationplanning, #roadsafetyaudit, #whyindianroadsareunsafe, #roadaccidentcausesinIndia