Bhubaneswar: In what could ring as an alarm bell for the rash drivers, a parliamentary committee has revealed that more than 500 drivers have died in road accidents in Khurda district in two years with most of them due to careless driving.
According to a report placed by the members of the Parliamentary Constituency Committee for Road Safety of Khurda at a meeting on Saturday, the road accidents claimed the lives of 504 people and rendered 855 critically injured in the district from January, 2019 to December, 2020.
In an analysis of the cause of the accidents, the report mentioned that highest of number 700 cases were due to rash and negligent driving during the period. While 107 accidents were caused by driving without helmet, 93 were due to over-speeding and 76 for wrong side driving.
Similarly, there were 119 hit and run cases while 53 accidents involved stray animals on the road. Interestingly, only 15 accident cases were related to defect road engineering during the period.
It was also revealed at the meeting, attended by BJD MPs Amar Patnaik and Pinaki Mishra, that the State Transport Authority (STA) has identified 23 vulnerable spots and stretches on NH 16 and 57 in the district. As many as 20 of those spots come under the highway from Nakhara to Barakul.
On the action taken against negligent driving, the committee said the driving licence of 3001 persons have been suspended in January and February this year and that of 1962 drivers last year.
