Mobile phones are a potential source of distraction while driving with Odisha accounting for 297 road accidents and loss of 120 human lives in a year due to such dangerous tendencies during driving, said the State Transport Authority (STA) officials on Friday.

“Road accidents due to usage of mobile phones are continuously increasing. As many as 297 road accidents took place in #Odisha in 2020 due to the use of mobile phones while driving. A total of 120 people lost their lives”, the State Transport Authority (STA) stated in its Twitter handle.

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Distracted driving due to the use of mobile phones has contributed to the rising road accident fatalities in the State. The majority of those who lost their lives due to mobile phone distraction are motorcyclists.

Incidentally, over 90% of road accidents being registered in Odisha are due to reckless over-speeding while 75 percent of people who are losing their lives in road accidents in the State were in the prime of their youth.

Despite road safety measures being taken up by the Odisha government under Supreme Court-monitored supervision, the road accident fatalities continue to be on the upswing with over 18,000 human lives lost in the past four years.

Use of mobile phones while driving apart, drunken driving, driving on the wrong side against the motor vehicle act provisions has also contributed towards the rising graph of road accidents in the State, said State Transport Authority (STA) officials.

As per the notification issued by STA last year, the speed limit for motorcycles was restricted at 60 kilometre per hour (kmph) on the four lane and above divided carriageway (roads with median strips/dividers).

On stretches of National and State Highways passing through the Municipality and Notified Area Council areas, motorcycles could move at a maximum speed of 30 kmph. Similarly, the limit is set at 50 kmph for motorcycles in other National Highways and State Highways in the State.

The motor vehicle act violations like driving the vehicle exceeding the specified limit (over-speeding), red lighting jumping, drunken driving, driving against flow of traffic, using mobile while driving, dangerous driving, triple driving in two wheelers, helmet-less driving, not wearing seat belts and overloading are being dealt with stringently and hefty penalty is being levied upon the violators under the Motor Vehicle Amendment Act, 2019, they concluded.