Himachal Pradesh Transport Minister Bikram Singh on Wednesday said the road safety campaign would be promoted as a mass campaign to establish road safety culture to check accidents in the state. After the meeting of State Transport Development and Road Safety Council, Bikram Singh said around 95 percent road accidents were caused due to human errors.

“Out of these 62.86 percent accidents are caused by over speeding which could be reduced by making people aware of road safety.

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The department has carried out a comprehensive road-safety awareness campaign in the state and districts which has resulted in a decrease of 7.62 percent road accidents, 5.13 percent in death rate and 11.65 percent decrease in injured persons,” he said.

Singh said a total of 3110 accidents took place in 2018 in which 1202 persons lost their lives while 2873 accidents took place in 2019 in which 1146 persons were killed. State Transport Minister said the Transport and Police Departments will jointly make efforts to make Himachal Pradesh a safe state by making people aware of wrong habits like over speeding, drinking and driving, overloading and over taking.

The Transport Minister directed the officials to fix the black spots on the roads to reduce road accidents and said that in case time bound completion of work is not ensured the concerned official would be held accountable.

“The Transport department has consulted drivers of HRTC buses, private buses and taxis to identify dark spots on roads in the state and efforts are being made to rectify them to reduce the number of road accidents,” he said. He directed the Public Works, Health and Transport Departments to work in coordination to reduce road accidents in the state.

The Transport Minister further stated that most people in the age group of 20 to 30 were victims of road accidents and therefore, it was very important to make students aware of road safety at school level. “The state government will include and teach road-safety lessons in schools. Besides, seminars and awareness camps would be also organized across the state to spread awareness amongst the drivers of the government and private sector. In addition, the state government will link private hospitals with road safety to provide care to accident victims and empanel them accordingly,” he added.

Singh said the Transport department had suffered a loss of Rs 272 crore during COVID-19 period and there was low occupancy in the buses that were being plied on over 1,700 routes across the state.

“The state government is also mulling to start interstate buses till Ambala in Haryana for the time being and the government will soon take a decision on the issue,” he added. Director Transport Captain J M Pathania, Principal Secretary Transport K K Pant, Managing Director Himachal Road Transport Corporation Yunus, Director Information and Public Relations Department Harbans Singh Brascon and Director Health Bharat Bhushan were also present in the meeting among others.