Two killed in separate road mishaps
An elderly man and a two-year-old girl were killed in two separate road accidents due to reckless driving. The incidents led to agitation and road blocks in the respective areas.
India accounts for 10 per cent of global road accident deaths with about 1.50 lakh fatalities annually, making it highest in the world, a report by International Road Federation (IRF) stated.
On the occasion of World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims (WDR) on Sunday , the IRF in a statement said that worldwide more than 1.25 million people died as result of road accidents. As many as 1,50,785 died in India during the year 2016.
Chairman of Geneva based IRF KK Kapila, said that more than 10 per cent of the world’s road deaths took place in India, which accounted for less than three per cent of vehicles in the world. Furthermore, many road accidents go unreported and unaccounted for in India, it is understood.
“What is more worrying is the sharp and continued rise in road fatalities over the past decade.
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Lakhs of fatalities and serious injuries on Indian roads could have been saved if recommended road safety actions were adopted and adhered to by the concerned stakeholders,” he said.
Kapila said that the UN believed that a day of to remind governments and individual members of the society of their responsibility to make the roads safer. Only then would the United Nations goal under the ‘UN Decade of Action’ envisaging a target of reducing road accident deaths worldwide by 50 per cent by the year 2020 be achieved, he felt.
“India has signed many International agreements on traffic and road safety issues including United Nation’s Decade of Action for road safety across the world. India is also signatory to the Brasilia Declaration, recently adopted by various countries, which recommends actions that must be taken in order to achieve the goals of the Decade of Action and the targets of the sustainable development goals. But the number of fatal road accidents in India are on the rise,” Kapila rued, adding that the government should immediately address the problem.
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