It’s not every day that California-based Dr Rajeev Kelkar gets to play the guitar and sing in a Kolkata club with friends. Jamming with them is a peaceful change from the sometimes-violent reality of his work. As somebody who specialises in accident reconstruction and the biomechanics of human injury, music takes his mind away from the often-tragic consequences of accidents. “Providing an accurate analysis of little-understood technical matters and explaining them in simple words hopefully allows people to make informed decisions regarding safety,” he says.
His expertise is in accident reconstruction related to motor vehicles or pedestrians, repetitive stress injuries such as those commonly seen in sportsmen and musicians, and biomechanics (or the science of human movement and the body’s response to mechanical forces). He also deals with accidents associated with the use or misuse of consumer products such as chain saws, cooking appliances or exercise equipment. Kelkar, the founding partner at California-based InSciTech, an engineering consulting firm that provides detailed analyses of technical problems, was also called to examine the accident involving former chairman of the Tata Group, Cyrus Mistry.
“I have had the opportunity to do crash tests with vehicles, work in the vault of a bank, descend into the deep recesses of tanker ships, take helicopter flights to and from a pipe-laying rig. It’s challenging, interesting, somewhat-unique work, and I love it,” he says. When he is not working, he relaxes by playing a lot of music. As somebody who is equally driven about work, playing tennis, having leisurely meals with his family and keeping up with friends from school (he went to La Martiniere, Kolkata), the nature of his work keeps him fully engaged and driven even in his late 50s. “Safety is not complicated. Accidents can be reduced and lives can be saved with an understanding of simple rules. Traffic accidents usually happen due to a wilful disregard for traffic laws such as not yielding to vehicles that have the right-of-way, not providing enough space for pedestrians, bicycles and other vehicles, or believing your time is more valuable than anyone else’s,” he says.
Wearing a seatbelt is the single most important thing an occupant can do when in a moving vehicle, but it does not provide absolute protection from injury, so care must still be used while operating a motor vehicle. “Across the world, the majority of automobile accidents are due to avoidable human error. This includes not halting at stop signs, not making appropriate adjustments for weather conditions, not ensuring an intersection is clear before entering it, and impaired driving,” says Kelkar, adding, “Focusing on numbers of fatalities, which is widely done, is missing the point.Fatalities represent a small fraction of all accidents and the difference between a fatal one and a near-miss accident is often just a fraction of a second or a metre. So, to discuss roadway safety, let us not focus on fatalities, but instead on the occurrence of mishaps themselves.”
At the end of the day, accidents are a function of driver education, driver behaviour and roadway/traffic infra-structure. “Sound roadway design, regular roadway maintenance, proper and functional roadway signs and markings, rigorous traffic law enforcement and roadway safety training and education are issues that need prioritisation,” according to him. Just then, Kelkar is pleasantly interrupted by the sound of the strumming ukulele that his daughter is playing in the other room. “The music never stops,” smiles Kelkar. Not accidents, however.