Town roads deadlier than city streets Traffic Rules, Control Check Fatal Mishaps In Metros

New Delhi: The chances of dying in a road accident in car-crazy Ludhiana in Punjab is 30 times higher than densely populated Mumbai, and two times more than in the national capital that has the highest vehicular count in the country.      A total 294 lives were snuffed out in Ludhiana in 444 road accidents last year in comparison to 563 fatalities in 25,471 accidents in Mumbai during the same period.      The severity of accidents — calculated on the basis of fatalities per 100 accidents — shows that accidents in small cities with sizeable population of high-speed and top-end vehicles were more fatal in comparison to bigger metros.      "There is some link between speeding and drunk driving in Ludhiana. But we expect fatalities will reduce in the next few years because of the ongoing road safety campaign conducted by the World Health Organization," said a road transport and highways ministry official. At least 66 people died in every 100 accidents.      The number of people dying in every 100 accidents was equally alarming in Durgapur-Asansol belt (62.5%) in West Bengal, Dhanbad (59.4%) in Jharkhand, Varanasi (51.4%), Agra (48.7%) and even in Ghaziabad (48.2%) and Meerut (43.3%) in the National Capital Region (NCR).      These figures were released by the transport research wing (TRW) of road transport and highways ministry. On the contrary, the number of fatal accidents in terms of severity was much less in other big metros like Bengaluru, Delhi and Kolkata.      "The trend of fatalities shows that there is some check on deaths in big cities. This is thanks to better enforcement of traffic rules whereas this is very less or almost missing in smaller cities and in rural areas," said an official.      Taking note of the disturbing trend, highways minister C P Joshi has asked officials to come out with a scientific study to suggest the speed limit for different types of roads, and the kind of vehicles that should ply on a particular category of road. The TRW report of 2011 has put the total fatalities at 1.42 lakh, which TOI had first reported on June 10.      But road safety experts say that the annual accident reports serve little purpose. "These don't help in formulation of any policy. There is no clarity on the causative factors of accidents. You have more fatalities per 100 accidents in Ludhiana and in other smaller cities people usually don't report minor accidents. We get the right figure only from major cities and Kerala," said Rohit Baluja, a member of UN Road Safety Collaboration.