80% road deaths worldwide are an occurence in low income countries. And sadly, India leads the world in road accident deaths. About 1.46 lakh people died on Indian roads in 2015. This implies a fatal accident every 3.7 minutes, which results in 16 deaths each hour and, 390 every day.
40% of accidents are of two wheelers by trucks. A reality this negative results in 2% GDP loss in India each year as road accident fatalities oftentimes snatch away the sole bread earner in a family.
According to International Road Federation (IRF), India ranks No 1 in the world where deaths due to road accidents is concerned. IRF also added that over 10% of global road deaths took place in India.
A per data received, Uttar Pradesh recorded the highest number of fatalities in road accidents. This was followed by Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Rajasthan. While larger states noted a marked increase in fatalities due to road accidents, the number declined in both Delhi and Chandigarh while Assam also saw decline in road accident related deaths compared to that experienced in 2014.
Be more aware
Have seminars which will discuss existing and potential influence of auto insurance industry, safe driving promotion, discouraging unsafe driving, funding for road safety activities, and fair and timely compensation.
All efforts taken by both central and state government to curb the rising incidents of road accidents have had little impact. New measures are being introduced to curb crashes and fatalities but it seems to be failing. Stronger laws, better enforcement and higher fines for breaking traffic regulations seems to be the need of the hour.
If each driver was wary of practicing of safe driving skills, obeyed traffic rules, was completely attentive on the road while driving, and was continuously aware of other drivers while practicing a sense of caution while behind the wheel it would go a long way to help bring down road accidents and fatalities to a large extent.
