Non-Urban Roads

Non-urban roads (i.e. roads outside urban or city areas) are classified as follows based on their accessibility and mobility functions. • National Highways (NH) and State Highways (SH) • Major District Roads (MDR) and Other District Roads (ODR) • Village Roads (VR)

National Highways (NH) and State Highways (SH)

National Highways (NH) and State Highways (SH) are primarily aimed to provide high mobility and accordingly, the speed is expected to be higher on such facilities than on other categories of non-urban road. However, you must respect the posted speed limit and other regulations on these roads to drive safely. Also, several stretches of NH and SH are passing through semi-urban areas where roadside activities, as well as pedestrians and other non-motorized traffic, are substantial. Even in the absence of posted speed limit, you must reduce the speed at all such locations, remain alert, and drive cautiously and safely.

Major District Roads (MDR)

Major District Roads (MDR) and Other District Roads (ODR) are the roads within a district that connect district headquarters to other important places and also provide connectivity to NH and SH. The mobility or speed on these roads is lower than NH/SH. Also, nearly all the MDR and ODR are undivided roads with two-way traffic movements. At several locations on MDR and ODR, you may find sharp curves and interactions with pedestrian and slow-moving vehicles. So, you need to be careful while driving on such roads and should not drive at high speed even though the traffic volume is generally low on such roads.

Village Road

Village roads connect a group of villages and to the nearest roads of higher mobility i.e. MDR or ODR. These roads predominantly serve the accessibility function, and mobility or speed is the least important on such roads. These are often narrow roads, have sharp curves and are used heavily by pedestrians, cyclists and slow-moving vehicles. You must drive slowly on these roads to ensure safety for you and other road users.

Altogether, even for non-urban roads, the speed should be selected based not only on the number of vehicles or level of congestion but also on accessibility and mobility functions (or functional classification) of the road.