A pack of about 25 men stand outside the Mumbai Road Transport Office, waiting for driver’s license applicants to show up. Then they swarm, offering shortcuts through the bureaucracy for 3,000 rupees ($65). “What do you want -- a driver’s license or learner’s permit without a test? It will happen,” said a man identifying himself only as Rafiq because he was breaking the law. He pays $1 bribes to officials, doctors and insurance agents to speed up license approvals, he said. Corruption, disregard for traffic laws, congested roads and a lack of car safety features all contribute to India having the world’s deadliest roads. Crashes that killed 119,860 people in 2008 -- an average of 327 a day -- cost the nation about 3 percent of its gross domestic product every year, according to government data. “In India, you can get a driver’s license as easily as a chai,” Delphine Muhlbacher, president of the Headlight India safety advocacy group, said, referring to a local tea drink. “In this context, driving licenses can sometimes turn into licenses to kill.” Record Vehicle Sales The issue is compounded by auto sales heading for their best year. Sales of passenger vehicles in October rose 38 percent from a year earlier, prompting automakers to say they may exceed a forecast of selling 2.4 million autos in the fiscal year ending March 31. Carmakers in India are benefiting from a $1.3 trillion economy that expanded 8.9 percent in the three months through September from a year earlier. Salaries may grow an average of 11 percent this year, the fastest rate in the Asia-Pacific region, said human resources adviser Aon Hewitt LLC, of Lincolnshire, Illinois. India surpassed China in road deaths in 2008, based on data from both governments. China recorded 67,759 deaths last year, down 7.8 percent from a year earlier, the Ministry of Public Security said. China had 186 million vehicles on its roads at the end of last year, and automakers in the world’s largest market may sell 17 million vehicles this year, the government said. ‘Absolute Lawlessness’ India drivers share roads with cows, pedestrians, bicycles and scooters, with pedestrians representing between 50 percent and 70 percent of the death toll, said Dinesh Mohan, a professor at the Indian Institute of Technology’s Transport Research & Injury Prevention Programme in New Delhi. “There is absolute lawlessness on the streets,” said Satyendra Garg, New Delhi’s joint police commissioner for traffic. “Unless there is a policeman at every intersection, people don’t obey any traffic rules.” Parliament’s transportation committee debated a bill this year creating an agency similar to the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The committee said in August the bill should be withdrawn because it wasn’t comprehensive enough, created duplication among agencies and didn’t eliminate “the menace of corruption.” The proposed agency also would set minimum vehicle-safety standards. Seat belts are the only mandatory equipment, and the increase in car buying hasn’t boosted demand for airbags or anti-lock brakes, automakers said. Maruti Suzuki, Toyota “It will take time for all the manufacturers to add safety features to their cars,” said C.V. Raman, chief general manager of engineering for Maruti Suzuki India Ltd., the nation’s largest manufacturer with about half the market. “We give customers a choice whether they want a fully loaded car with all the safety features, or a car without those features at a lower cost.” A WagonR hatchback with airbags and anti-lock brakes costs 27 percent more in Mumbai than one without, according to Maruti Suzuki’s website. Toyota Motor Corp., the world’s largest automaker, is targeting Maruti Suzuki’s dominance with the Etios compact debuting this month. “We do have laws,” said Vikram Kirloskar, vice chairman of Toyota’s Indian unit. “These are not enforced very well. We need honest enforcement.” The Road Transport Office in Mumbai officially charges 200 rupees for a permanent license and 30 rupees for a learner’s permit valid for 30 days. Bribery Investigation Outside the gates, Rafiq said “agents” like himself spend 50 rupees bribing employees to ensure customers get licenses without exams and without waiting for paperwork. Some agents have 20-30 employees on a monthly payroll, he said. The bribes help streamline a process typically taking a full day with visits to numerous counters down to a few hours, Rafiq said. He earns 500-1,000 rupees a day after his payoffs. “There is a lot of competition here,” he said. “In a government office, where do you find that you don’t have to pay a bribe?” He then trotted over to a man getting out of a taxi. After a few minutes of discussion, they entered the office together. Deputy Road Transport Officer K. Bansod declined to comment on Rafiq’s claims or the issue of bribery. The payoffs are common knowledge, according to Niket Kaushik, the head of Mumbai’s anti-corruption bureau. In a separate case, the bureau accuses top RTO officials in Maharashtra state, encompassing Mumbai, of taking bribes of up to 40,000 rupees to undervalue vehicles so owners would pay lower taxes. India was 87th on Transparency International’s 2010 Corruption Perceptions Index measuring the frequency and size of bribes to government and political officials. The U.S. was 22nd and China 78th. A larger number equates with a greater perception of corruption in the public sector. “We keep on having cases against RTO officers and their staff,” Kaushik said. “This is an issue that even their senior officers are aware of, and they have to come up with a solution to this problem.” To contact the reporter on this story: Siddharth Philip in Mumbai at sphilip3@bloomberg.net. To contact the editor responsible for this story: Neil Denslow at ndenslow@bloomberg.net.

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