Road Safety Week - 1st January to 7th January
Every minute there is a road accident, and every 3.7 minutes there is a death due to road traffic injuries, which is responsible for most number of deaths and disabilities in India in 2011 (latest available Indian Government data).
The worrying factor is that about 30% of the deaths were of people in the age group of 15 to 24.
According to the latest report by the Ministry of Road Transport & Highways, there were 4.97 lakh accidents in 2011, in which 1,42,485 people died.
Uttar Pradesh leads the table with the maximum number of deaths, followed by Tamil Nadu & Andhra Pradesh.
Data show that there has been a gradual increase in accident severity, which refers to persons killed in every 100 accidents.
In 2002, the accident severity was 21 (in other words for every 100 accidents, 21 died), and touched an all time high of 28.6 in 2011.
The Ministry’s 2012-13 annual report said that the National Road Safety Policy has envisaged setting up a dedicated agency – National Road Safety & Traffic Management Board – to oversee the road safety activities in the country.
This is under consideration in consultation with States and Union Territories.
Mr. Sarvey Sathyanarayana, Minister of State in the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, said the Lok Sabha last month that the Ministry had adopted a multi-pronged strategy to address the issue of road safety based on four (4) Es:
1. Education.
2. Enforcement
3. Engineering (roads as well as vehicles) and
4. Emergency care.
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