Aiming to halve the number of deaths due to road accidents in the coming five years, the Centre has drawn up a new action plan which it hopes to implement by early next year.
As part of the plan, the Ministry of Roads, Transport and Highways will introduce a new two-wheeler safety norms.
Making a case for the action plan in a recent letter to the Finance Ministry, Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari had said that road deaths lead to an economic loss of 2-3 per cent of the GDP, apart from the social trauma.
“We are putting together a national action plan to bring down the number of road deaths. The action plan will include new stringent safety norms to discourage people from driving rash or under influence of alcohol,” said an official from the Ministry of road, transport and highways.
“We are also collaborating with the International Road Federation (IRF), World Health Organisation (WHO) and World Bank to improve engineering designs of roads to make them safer and enhance trauma care, among other measures,” he said.
India has the highest number of fatalities in road accidents in the world, with one person being killed in a road mishap every four minutes. last year, over 1.37 lakh people were killed and over three lakh were crippled in five lakh road accidents.
Statistics show that while two-wheelers account for 72 percent of automobiles in India, more than half of the fatalities in road accidents involve two-wheeler riders.
As per the upcoming safety norms, all two-wheelers in India will have automatic headlamps on (AHO), similar to daytime running lamps in cars, officials said. There is also a proposal to fit a sound device that can alert passersby and people around an accident site.
“The horn automatically starts honking when a vehicle meets with an accident. In western countries these measures have helped in reducing the number of deaths in accidents significantly,” said the official.
“In the Western countries, A1 and A2 licence holders are allowed to ride motorcycles with a certain power output only, whereas in India a driving licence holder can ride any motorcycle or superbike. That also increases chances of accidents. We are working to regulate this as well,” the official said.