Visakhapatnam: The Union ministry of road transport and highways has identified more than 700 black spots across the country on national highways based on the fatalities data from 2011-13. All the black spots have been accorded priority based on the fatalities that have occured over three years. The AP Police and Road Transport Authority says that the state has over 50 black spots on NHs but it was found that the state has the least, numbering at just eight.
The National Crime Records Bureau’s accidental deaths in 2014 says that over 1.4 lakh people were killed in road accidents all over India in 2014, a slight increase over that in 2013. Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu account for a third of all traffic accident deaths. Two-wheelers account for over a quarter of all fatal road accident, the largest number of them in Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra. A total of 7,908 people were killed and 29,931 were injured in 23,145 road accidents in AP in 2014. Similarly in Telangana, 6,906 people were killed, 21,636 were injured in 20,078 road accidents in 2014.
Having road safety on the top of the priority list, the minstry of road transport and highways (MoRTH) has identified 726 black spots, where more accidents were reported on various NHs and '11,000 crore has been earmarked to address the problem. Out of the 700 odd black spots, 495 are priority 5 (less than fatalities), 154 are priority 4 (fatalities in between 21 and 44), 32 are priority 3 (fatalities 45 to 69), 19 are priority 2 (fatalities 70 to 95) and 18are priority 1 (fatalities above 95).
Seven black spots are accorded special priority as these are old black spots. The police and RTA officials said that the enter stretch of NH-16 (Chennai to Kolkata) in Andhra Pradesh (from Nellore district to Srikakulam district) is around 990 km and over 30 per cent of the fatal accidents have been reported on the NH-16 stretch. “We have identified over 30 black spots on the NH-16 between Vizag and Srikakulam stretch only but the MoRTH report says only eight black spots are there on all the NHs put together in AP,” said police and RTA officials.
