India accounts for more than 10 per cent of global road accident deaths in absence of sufficient safety measures, global experts today cautioned.
"More than 10 per cent of the global road deaths take place on India's killer roads - which account for less than 3 per cent of the world's vehicles," global road safety expert and former member of World Bank's Road Safety Task Force Stein Lundebye said today.
The figures are high despite many such accidents not been documented, Lundebye said addressing a conference here, jointly organised by Ministry of Road Transport and Highways and International Road Federation.
"What is more worrying is the sharp rise in road fatalities over the past decade. Many fatalities and serious injuries on Indian roads could have been saved if recommended road safety actions had been implemented," he added.
As many as 1.5 lakh people in India die in road accidents annually while another 3 lakh are crippled for life. India accounts for about 5 lakh road accidents per annum.
United Nations has set a global 'Decade of Action' plan for Road Safety which aims to reduce road fatalities by 50 per cent till 2020.
Experts said India has signed many pacts on traffic and road safety issues but lacks implementation of proposed actions.
Expressing serious concerns, they said India lacked vision, goal-setting and political will and with less than five years left to meet the UN goal of reducing fatal accidents, a lot needs to be done.
Road safety and civil consultant World Bank, Philip Jordan said that road safety engineering is lacking in India and to improve that, road signs, markings and crash barriers should be treated as bare necessities rather than adornments.
"Simple measures like segregating pedestrians and non-motorised traffic from the main vehicular stream, and ensuring that sidewalks and road shoulders are usable, can bring down the number of injuries significantly," he said.
