Over 3.66 lakh road accidents resulted 1.32 lakh deaths in 2020: Nitin Gadkari

A total of 3,66,138 road accidents took place in India in 2020, causing 1,31,714 deaths, informed the union minister for road transport and highways Nitin Gadkari. The minister said this in Lok Sabha while answering a question.

India is one of the countries with an alarmingly high number of road accidents that cause numerous deaths and severe injuries. A majority of these road accidents take place on national highways and expressways. Poor road design, reckless driving, traffic rule violations are among the key reasons behind these road accidents.

Tamil Nadu is the state with the highest number of road accidents. The southern state has the maximum number of accident-prone locations or black spots on national highways and expressways. West Bengal and Karnataka are at the second and third spots in terms of maximum accident-prone locations on national highways and expressways.

While addressing the issue, Gadkari also said that his ministry has devised a multi-pronged strategy to address road safety issues. The strategy will focus on education, road engineering, vehicle engineering, enforcement and emergency care.

MoRTH has notified the 'Member of Parliament's Road Safety Committee' in each district of India to promote awareness amongst road users under the chairmanship of the Member of Parliament (Lok Sabha) from the district.

MoRTH has said that concerned agencies like BRO, NHAI, etc have been notified to fix the accident-prone locations on national highways in various states. Also, the government is pushing the auto industry to adopt stricter measures to make vehicles safer. The latest among the proposed measures was to ensure six airbags as a standard safety feature in all passenger vehicles across different segments.

The amended Motor Vehicles Act too comes imposing stricter punitive measures for the traffic rule violations. This is claimed to have helped in reducing the number of road accidents across the country.

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