Geopathic Stress: A Possible Cause for Pavement Distresses and Road Accidents

Abstract

India loses 3% of its GDP due to road accidents. Significance of Geopathic stress as a causative factor of road accidents has been studied by few researchers; however its effect on Pavement distresses and hence road accident is yet unexplored. The aim of this research is to determine the correlation between average number of accidents, Pavement Condition Index (PCI) values and Geopathic stress. Accident data was collected from Pune traffic department for 3 years period from 2015-16 to 2017-18. Based on the number of accidents during this period accident blackspots were found. On each black spot pavement distresses survey was carried out and its condition was analyzed by Indian Road Congress (IRC) 82:2015 code method. At these accident blackspots detection of geopathic stress was done by using 2 copper L-rods, lecher antenna. Intensity was measured in terms of electrical and magnetic field. Electrical field reading was measured using Esmog-spion and magnetic field reading was measured by magnetometer. Data was analyzed using Karl Pearson’s correlation coefficient and a linear regression model is developed for average number of road accidents (Ā) with Pavement Condition Index (PCI). Utility of the equation is for forecasting the number of fatal accidents at similar black spots based on their pavement distress condition. A further attempt is to investigate the effect of electric and magnetic characteristics of geopathic stress on road accidents.