CHANDIGARH: According to a report by the ministry of road transport and highways, 13 people die daily in Punjab due to over-speeding. It is also the leading cause of deaths as 2,540 people died out of a total of 4,725 death in road accidents in 2018.
The state is ranked second in the country in terms of severity of road accidents as the fatality rate is 73.7 against the national average of 32.4 per cent. Mizoram was the state with highest percentage of severity of road accidents in the country.
A total of 391 accident hot spots were identified across the 14 districts of the state. There has also been an increase of 2.5 per cent in road accidents and 62 per cent more deaths in the state in 2018 as compared to 2017. As per the report, 74 per cent of these accidents took place on national and state highways and about 20.3 per cent of these accidents take place between 6 PM to 9 PM.
The accident rate on national highways is 0.64 per kilometre/year and state highways 1.65 per kilometre/year. Also, 84 people died due to drunken driving. Also, 75 per cent of the people involved in various fatal road accidents were of the age group between 18 to 45 and 58 per cent of the accidents occurred in rural areas.
