The largest number of people are not killed by any deadly disease or a prevalent crime, it is a human error in driving that causes these deaths. Police records show that most deaths caused in Telangana are in road accidents, of which, the majority are caused by human error.
More than 7,200 people were killed in road accidents in 2017, while there were 960 murders. “More than 75% of the road accident occur due to factors like over speeding, drunk driving and overloading of a vehicle,” said Telangana Road Safety and Railways Director General of Police T. Krishna Prasad. He said in India about 1.5 lakh people were killed in road accidents last year, while there were 38,000 murders.
According to him, over 50% of the victims killed in road accidents are in the age group of 15 to 45 years, which includes students and employees, “and other 45% deceased are pedestrians and two-wheeler riders.”
Interacting with media persons during an event organised by the Indian Federation of Road Safety on role of media in reporting road accidents, Mr. Prasad said with over 7,000 people dying on roads every year, road safety has become one of the most persistent issues and the State government had set up Road Safety Authority and proposing a separate act.
“We are drafting Road Safety Act and the same will be implemented by the government very soon,” Mr. Prasad said. He said the government had increased the enforcement to curb the road accidents and last year the Traffic police had collected over ₹135 crore through penalties.
“There is 100% increase in booking of cases against traffic violators and 200% hike in imposing penalties,” he said, adding that road accidents had a huge impact on the economy and every year more than 3% of GDP is lost in road crashes.
According to the data provided by the police department, there is 1% dip in road fatalities during the first quarter of this calendar year compared to January-March 2017. Mr. Prasad said between January and March last year 5,750 accidents occurred in the State, in which 1,680 persons died and 6,099 were injured.
“This year the number of accidents declined to 5,632, in which 1,550 persons died. However, the number of persons injured in these accidents has increased to 6,112,” he said. Joint Transport Commissioners J. Pandurang Naik and C. Ramesh were present at the event.
Date: July 5, 2018
Source: The Hindu
