835 died on city’s roads in ’05

835 died on city’s roads in ’05
Vishwa Mohan | TNN

New Delhi: Here is one reason why authorities should give top priority to roads in namma Bengaluru. The city’s roads are known to be dangerous. But just how lethal they are is now evident with official figures revealing that Bangalore is the third risky metro with 835 people dying on its roads in 2005.
Delhi tops the chart with 1,717 accident deaths followed by Chennai with 1,055. After Bangalore comes Mumbai (787), Kanpur (598), Hyderabad (577), Jaipur (495) and Kolkata (484).
In India, nearly 280 people die in road accidents every day.
The National Crime Records Bureau statistics for 2005 show that among the states, Tamil Nadu had highest casualties (13,961) followed by Andhra Pradesh (10,944), Maharashtra (10,613), UP (9,860) and Karnataka (6,876). Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh together have, in fact, reported more than one-fourth of total road accident deaths in the country.
The figures for 2006 are being compiled, but the number of persons dead is likely to be in excess of 1,00,000. This staggering number is all the more distressing as the profiles of victims reveal that two-third of the dead in 2005 were in the 15-44 age bracket. This highlights not only a tragic waste of lives but could also point to lack of emergency services for accidents. Poor quality of roads to blame for accidents
New Delhi: In cities like Delhi, killer Bluelines take lives every day on the roads with the toll already at 109 this year. But, at the national level, smaller vehicles, including cars and two-wheelers, contribute more or less equally in making Indian roads a “death trap” as do heavier vehicles like trucks and lorries.
NCRB has data for 35 cities and though it merely compiles the figures received every year from states and Union Territories (UTs) and does not go into causes, experts believe that the rising graph of road deaths, increasing steadily since 2001, is not only due to increase in number of vehicles but also poor quality of roads and blatant violation of traffic and driving rules.
The deaths on Indian roads, where annual road traffic growth rate is 7-10%, contributed to more than 8% of total deaths due to road accidents worldwide. According to UN figures, about 12,00,000 people die in road accidents every year. It was observed during the UN General Assembly two years ago that while the number of road deaths was decreasing in the West, they were rising in the developing world, in regions like the sub-continent.
Though in all states, the share of accidental deaths in cities and big towns is more than in rural areas, villagers invariably tend to be vulnerable along highways.