Over 12 people daily lose their lives in accidents on Punjab roads, revealed the latest statistics. Even when death figures due to accidents have seen a declining trend, most deaths (86 percent) are those of males in the 25 to 35 age group and 14 percent are those of females in Punjab.
The figures were shared by Punjab’s Traffic Adviser Dr Navdeep Asija in a road safety event where hundreds of people joined the road safety campaign at Chandigarh Group of Colleges (CGC), Landran on Wednesday.
ADGP Traffic Dr SS Chauhan stressed on the need to change the traffic culture to bring down fatalities in accidents. “Across the country, 415 people are daily killed in road accidents, which is much more than lives lost on account of terrorism across nation,” he said.
Chauhan stressed that the Japanese have set an example by following the traffic culture and not breaking the rules. “Over 70 percent families in urban areas and 50 percent in rural have been left below poverty line after having lost their bread-earners in accidents,” he said.
Arrive Safe NGO president Harman Singh Sidhu said: “As we enter the final year of the UN Decade of Action for Road Safety 2011-2020, we have not been able to curtail the rising graph of fatalities forget about achieving the target of reducing them by 50 percent because of unsafe roads.”