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Editorial Posted On Monday, October 26, 2009 | Social activist Prince Singhal met Kamal Nath -Union Minister for Road transport and highways recently as a representative of the common man presenting a petition urgently seeking the formation of a National Council on Road Safety to address the public health concern of adverse road safety across India in a more comprehensive and proactive manner.
According to Singhal "As representative of the masses I presented this petition and the honorable minister who while appreciating my efforts accepted that it is in the best national interest that such a body be made and further gave an assurance that the country would soon see such a body."
Singhal who has been addressing various road safety issues over the last 9 years is also the initiator of the campaign against drunk driving in India and has been working towards preventing drunk driving tragedies. He presented a Petition to the Minister asking for the formation of such a body that will address major issues relating to road safety like tougher laws, higher penalties, awareness, road engineering and greater initiative from the government in dealing with this issue.
According to Singhal "The urgent need to meet the minister arose from the fact that we have become world number one in road fatalities and hence it was important to meet the minister in order to apprise him on the Adverse Road Safety situation in India which has become a serious national tragedy over the years as indicated by the following figures:
- We have the highest number of road fatalities in the world at 1,30,000 annually recently surpassing China.
- - The number of road accidents in the country have also reached a figure of about 6,00,000 annually making road safety a matter of serious public health concern.
- Road accidents are the single largest cause of death amongst youth in the age group of 16-34 years and children below the age of 5 years. - 70% of the road fatalities in India are due to drunk driving."
The petition also seeks an amendment in the Motor Vehicle Act, revising penalties for various offences including drunken driving, strengthening enforcement, conducting Road Safety research and data base, Road infrastructure & engineering, awareness cum education and victim compensation -beside others as part of new Road safety policy According to Singhal "In order to develop concrete long term strategies to deal with the menace of adverse road safety it is important to form such a body which would address this problem in a more concrete and comprehensive manner.
Prince Singhal
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Friday, September 03, 2010