40% of fatal accidents due to rear-end collisions: road audit

The study, a pilot audit of data on four stretches of roads in Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra for a total of 557 km one way, also found several engineering defects, such as gaps in medians, missing guardrails, maintained concrete structures. along the road, etc., all of which was added. resulting in accidents and deaths. On the Agra-Etawah stretch, for example, 7,500 engineering failures of this type were identified. The other three corridors that were audited are Etawah-Chakeri in UP, and Pune-Satara and Satara-Kagal in Maharashtra.

The four sections audited had witnessed more than 6,500 accidents during the last three years, of which more than 1,600 were serious and fatal.

The auditors, the NGO SaveLife Foundation, reviewed trauma care medical records and data from highway dealerships and found that fatigue, especially among commercial vehicle drivers, led them to collide with parked vehicles or slow-moving vehicles for the back part. “There were no tire marks, which means the brakes were not applied. Most likely, the drivers fell asleep and got into another vehicle, ”said Piyush Tiwary, founder of SaveLife and a member of the National Highway Traffic Safety Council.

According to the audit, in addition to common deficiencies such as driving under the influence of alcohol, riding without a helmet, lack of adequate lighting in some sections, lack of control by state governments, etc., which have also contributed to accidents are local factors related to the weather.

The stages in Uttar Pradesh had many accidents due to the lack of visibility in the winter months. In the Agra-Etawah section, for example, about 39 percent of the deaths and 32 percent of the accidents occurred in foggy/foggy conditions.

Maharashtra had the problem of “hydroplaning” in the monsoon months, which caused the vehicles to spiral out of control.

Between 50 and 60 percent of the accidents on the audited sections took place in daylight, and the majority of the accidents were collisions of motorized two-wheelers and trucks.

The audit also assessed the local trauma care setting and found that instead of placing ambulances closer to accident-prone areas, they were parked in equidistant locations.

The Ministry of Road and Highway Transport has booked 12 more sections totaling around 4,000 km in 15 states, contributing to 85 percent of all accidents and fatalities in a year on India’s roads, to be audited. by the SaveLife Foundation. This, after the ministry, noted that the NGO had carried out a similar audit on the Mumbai-Pune Expressway and, following the implementation of the recommendations, deaths fell by 52 percent between 2016 and 2020.

Ministry officials said that based on the findings and recommendations of the audit of the four tranches, corrections are being carried out.

India has the dubious distinction of witnessing around 5 lakh of road accidents and 1.5 lakh of deaths every year.