The Delhi High Court has refused anticipatory bail to two contractors who allegedly failed to cordon off a deep pit they had dug for water works in the middle of a west Delhi road, into which a motorcyclist crashed to death. It follows last month’s death of a 27-year-old whose car had plunged into a water-filled pit in Greater Noida. Earlier this month, the government told the Lok Sabha that as many as 9,438 lives were lost to pothole accidents between 2000 and 2004. Last year, the Bombay High Court ordered errant government officials and private contractors to pay fixed compensation for pothole deaths. We need such action to be instituted into a model central road safety law. After all, a third of such deaths happen on national highways.