Roads claim 1 life every 4.5 mins

Indian roads witness one accident every minute and one death in road mishaps every four and a half minutes, according to the latest report of the road, transport and highways ministry.
The report, which was released this week by the transport research wing of the ministry, said that in 2008, the country witnessed 4.85 lakh road accidents in which 1.2 lakh people lost their lives. And more than half of the road accident victims are in the age group of 25 and 65 years, the `key wage earning and child raising age group'.
Similarly, the report estimates that these road mishaps left 5.2 lakh people injured.
The annual road accident document also points to high fatalities -- almost 65% of the all road deaths -- on national and state highways in comparison to other roads. In 2008, while 42,670 persons died on NHs, the state highways claimed 34,081 lives. "The deaths are on rise despite the ministry spending more on road safety in the last six years. We are not analyzing the actual reasons behind road accidents. Had technical people with road safety expertise been in-charge of the affairs, the situation would not have slipped to this alarming level,'' said a senior ministry official.
While in 2004-05, the ministry spent Rs 35 crore out of the allocated fund of Rs 39.7 crores, in 2008-09 it shot to Rs 54.8 crore.
The report singles out fault of the drivers as the major reason of road deaths. This claimed 89,360 persons in 2008. Fault of cyclists, pedestrians, motor vehicles and bad road and weather conditions were also identified as some of the factors for fatalities on roads across the country.
However, ministry sources said that in the absence of proper investigation of road mishaps, local police put the onus of these accidents on the drivers. "The report is silent on how the governments' failure to regulate the issuance of driving licences and lack of proper training of drivers are contributing to this high occurrence of road mishaps,'' officials said on condition of anonymity.
Meanwhile, the ministry has set an ambitious target to bring down road deaths by 50% in the next two years. For this purpose, the budget estimate for 2010-11 has been increased to Rs 180 crore from Rs 74 crores in the previous year.
Source: The Times of India

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