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Gadkari on accidents: I try to hide my face in meetings abroad
New Delhi: “When I go to attend international conferences where there is a discussion on road accidents, I try to hide my face,” Nitin Gadkari said on...
New Delhi: “When I go to attend international conferences where there is a discussion on road accidents, I try to hide my face,” Nitin Gadkari said on Thursday, underlining he had set a target to reduce accidents by 50 per cent when he first took charge as the Road Transport and Highways Minister.
During a discussion on road accidents in Lok Sabha on Thursday, Gadkari said, “Forget about reducing the number of accidents, I have no hesitation to admit that it has been increased. When I go to attend international conferences where there is a discussion on road accidents, I try to hide my face.” He was replying to a supplementary question during the Question Hour.
The minister said that for things to improve human behaviour in India has to change, society has to change and rule of law has to be respected. Gadkari said he and his family met with a major accident some years ago and he needed to be hospitalised for a long time.
“By the grace of God, I and my family were saved. So I have my personal experience of accidents.” He said parking of trucks on the road is a major cause for accidents and many of the trucks don’t follow lane discipline. He said he has ordered to follow international standards in making bus bodies in India. There has to be a hammer near a bus window so that it can be broken easily in case of accidents, he said.
Gadkari said the biggest reason for road accidents is lane indiscipline and his own car was fined twice in Mumbai for not following traffic rules.
He said high speed is not such a big problem as people all over the world drive fast. However, lane indiscipline is a bigger problem in India, the minister noted. Gadkari said people, especially youth, have to be educated about traffic discipline, and even children ought to be sensitised about the importance of traffic rules.
Earlier, Gadkari said road accidents claim 1.78 lakh lives annually in the country and 60 per cent of the victims are in the age group of 18-34 years. He said while Uttar Pradesh leads the chart among states, Delhi tops the list for cities. In UP, over 23,000 people (or 13.7 per cent of the total deaths due to road accidents) died, followed by Tamil Nadu with over 18,000 (10.6 per cent) deaths.
