Engineers Are Responsible for Accidents, But People Blame Drivers: Nitin Gadkari on Road Safety

Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari on Tuesday held road engineers accountable for accidents, saying that defective planning and defective Detailed Project Report (DPRs) are major problems.

Speaking at Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) National Conclave on ‘Road Safety – Indian Roads@2030 – Raising the Bar of Safety’, Gadkari said road safety should be considered the most important while making the DPR. “Road engineering is very important. I request the CII committee to concentrate and take a special subject for making DPRs. The quality of the DPRs is so bad… I feel basically the engineers are responsible for road accidents, but people always blame the drivers. So the main problem is road engineering,” he said.

The minister said that there should be a conference on how they can improve the road quality as far as road safety is concerned. He said there should be talks on accepting new technologies in the world to reduce the road cost and improve road safety.

‘CHANGE IN SOCIAL BEHAVIOUR VERY IMPORTANT’

Gadkari added that “unfortunately” there has been an increase in road accidents by 12% and 10% increase in road accidents deaths resulting in socio-economic loss of 3.14% to GDP.

The minister cited the latest report on ‘Road Accidents 2022’ that claimed that 4.6 lakh road accidents took place in 2022, killing 1.68 lakh people.

“Every hour, there were 53 road accidents and 19 deaths…. Accident death is loss of bread-earner in a family, professional loss to employers and overall loss to the economy,” he highlighted.

He said 60% of deaths are in the young age group of 18-35.

Gadkari said that road safety is the top-most priority of the Government with a target to reduce accident deaths by 50% by 2030.

“Change in social behaviour is very important along with focusing on strengthening ‘4Es of Road Safety’ – Engineering (Road & Vehicle Engineering), Enforcement, Education and Emergency Medical Service,” he said, emphasising on cooperation of all stakeholders for enhancing road safety.

The minister highlighted that people neither have respect for the law nor fear. “People go abroad and follow road laws, but they don’t do it here,” he said.

Calling road accident deaths “a very serious problem”, he said: “If we can take initatives to stop accidents, it will be a great thing for the country.”