12.5% of road mishaps occur in India

Vijayawada: As much as 12.5 per cent of road accidents occur in India, which accounts for one accident per every four minutes. Seventy-two per cent of road mishaps involved persons in the age group between 15 to 44 years, according to Ministry of Road Transport and Highways.

In this regard, a three-day workshop was organised by Diageo India (United Spirits), announced the launch of the Road Safety Capacity Building programme for the Andhra Pradesh Police together with the Institute of Road Traffic Education (IRTE). About 50 police officers from Andhra Pradesh will be given training in the workshop.

The workshop was inaugurated by City Police Commissioner Goutam Sawang on Monday. Speaking on the occasion, he quoted, in 2016 alone over 8,500 deaths and over 30,000 serious injuries due to road accidents were reported in Andhra Pradesh. He said we must take it as a challenge to bring down the number of accidents because every life is valuable.

He said that 6.5 per cent of road accidents have come down. And to bring them down further, we need to educate people right from the schools and colleges by introducing traffic and road sense as a curriculum, undertake camps, teach them the basics and fundamentals.

Diageo India chief strategic and corporate affairs officer Abanti Sankaranarayanan said, "The Diageo Road to Safety initiative aims to create the necessary impact to address the abysmal state of road safety in our country. By collaborating with the Andhra Pradesh and IRTE, we aim to take this programme to greater heights and encourage more people to become champions of road safety."

Institute of Road Traffic Education (IRTE) president Dr Rohit Baluja said that we were committed to building a right foundation to address the issues of road safety and traffic management in India. 

He complimented the Andhra Pradesh Police and Diageo India for having taken the initiative to undertake the capacity building programme for its police force.

Since 2014, this programme has trained over 4,000 traffic officials in road safety, capacity-building, along with 6,000 commercial vehicle drivers and over 5,000 university students in more than 60 cities of 17 states.