National Highways witnesses highest road accidents compared to state highwayshighways

During 2021, a total 4,12,432 accidents were recorded in the country, of which, 1, 28,825 (31.2 per cent ) took place on the National Highways (NH) including Expressways, 96,382 (23.4 per cent ) on State Highways (SH) and the remaining 1,87,225 (45.4 per cent ) on other Roads. Out of total 1, 42,163 fatal accidents reported in 2021, 50,953 (35.8 per cent ) persons died on NHs, 34,946 (24.6 per cent ) persons died on SHs and 56,264 (39.6 per cent ) were on other roads.

According to the Ministry, the total length of NHs in the country is 1.32 lakh km (2.1 per cent of total road network), SHs length is 1.79 lakh km (2.8 per cent ) and other roads length is 60.19 lakh km (95.1 per cent of total road network).

"Between 2015-2018, around 4,002 blackspots were identified on the NHs under National Highway Authority of India ( NHAI). Short-term safety mitigation measures have been implemented for all these blackspots and work on the long-term safety mitigation measures have been completed on 2,704 blackspots. Safety mitigation measures on around 716 blackspots were implemented in 2021-22 alone. The remaining 1,298 blackspots are under various stages of implementation for the long-term safety mitigation measures," the Ministry said in a statement.

"To strengthen road safety, all NHAI Regional Officers have been asked to develop five stretches of ‘Model Safe Road’ of at least 15 km length along with five ‘Model Safe Construction Zones’. Ten such best safety compliance stretches/construction zones will be evaluated and recognized to serve as demonstration stretches for further replication," the statement said.

The Ministry has claimed that it has conducted a road safety audit about 61,086 km length of NHs, which is around 43 per cent of the total NH network so far.

“Safety audit of all roads on NH network will be conducted. Besides, road safety audits have been made part and parcel of all NHs development projects while awarding contracts for building roads. The Road Transport Ministry has issued a circular which makes it mandatory to carry out road safety audits for all new road projects having length of 5 km or more at the stage of Detail Project Report (DPR), said the official from the Ministry.

As per Ministry, a spot is considered as black spot where NH of about 500 metre in length in which either 5 road accidents (in all three years put together involving fatalities /grievous injuries) took place during the last 3 calendar years or 10 fatalities (in all three years put together) took place during the last 3 calendar years.