NEW DELHI: With nearly 1.5 lakh people killed in road accidents last year, the government on Tuesday said it's committed to reduce the number of such mishaps by 50 per cent in the next two years and stringent measures are being taken to ensure safer roads across the country.
The government has adopted a multi-pronged strategy, which include effective road engineering solutions at the design stage, rectification of accident black spots, improvement in automobile engineering, driver education, revision and effective enforcement of laws, to curb accidents.
Speaking on the importance of road engineering in preventing accidents and the resultant loss of lives, Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari said simple and well thought out designs like height of road dividers, placement of over-bridges and underpasses at appropriate places or placement and design of speed breakers can often be very effective in ensuring safety on roads.
He called upon project directors, highway engineers and regional officers of highway projects to adopt a sensitive, sensible, time-bound and result-oriented approach to tackle the problem of road accidents and take up the work of rectification of accident black spots on mission mode. According to latest data, almost 5 lakh road accidents occurred in the country last year, killing 146,000 people and leaving thrice the number injured.
There has been an increase of 2.5 per cent in the number of accidents compared to 2014. The Transport Ministry has been taking several measures like coming out with policies for compulsory airbags in cars and from October 1, 2018, all vehicles will have to go in for automated inspection and fitness certification test with hardly any human intervention.
Also on the cards are rear-view sensors and speed warning alerts in cars to bring down accidents. The government has already made it compulsory for all two-wheelers, which account for the highest share of accidents in the country, to either have anti-lock braking system (ABS) or combined braking system (CBS) by April 2019.