Nitin Gadkari reports five lakh annual road accidents in India

Union Minister Nitin Gadkari addressed a road safety event organized by ICICI Lombard in New Delhi on Monday. He reported that India experiences five lakh road accidents annually, leading to 1.8 lakh deaths. This statistic indicates that 20 people die on Indian roads every hour. Gadkari noted that 66 percent of those killed are young people, and 45 percent of all road accident fatalities involve two-wheeler riders or passengers.

Gadkari emphasized that road accidents claim more lives than diseases or wars. He specifically highlighted the lack of helmet usage as a major factor, noting that 54,132 people died in the previous year due to not wearing helmets. The minister called for the implementation of stricter safety norms, the mandatory use of helmets, and improvements to infrastructure to mitigate the high rate of fatalities.