A total of 480,652 road accidents took place in India in 2016, which resulted in the loss of 150,785 human lives and left 494,625 injured as per the report Ministry of Road Transport and Highways in 2017. That means the country has around 55 road accidents every hour killing 17 people.

* In India annually more than 1.5 lakh people die in road accidents and more than 5 lakhs are severely injured.
* More than 60% of people killed on roads in India in 2016 were in the age group of 18 to 45 years.
* India is signatory in Brasilia Declaration to reduce road fatalities by 50% by year 2020.
* India, which loses 3% of its GDP to road accidents, has one of the least safe roads in the world.

Road traffic accidents spare no one, be they rich or poor, urban or rural, young or old, man or woman or of any caste or religion. A lot of productive lives are lost in road fatalities on Indian Roads. Also many families are pushed towards poverty due to the loss of life of the bread-earner of the family.

Today we are afraid whether our near and dear ones will be returning safe or not due to dangerous roads, weak laws and low penalties besides other loopholes. After 1988 now Motors Vehicles Act is going to be changed. Let’s support this passage of a strong Motor Vehicle Amendment bill 2017 in Rajya Sabha in the post budget session.

The passage of the MVA Bill is key to improve road safety and help India meet its target of reducing by half the burden of road injuries and fatalities by 2020.

Therefore, parliamentarians need to take tough decisions which are in the best interest of the country. This would be as of now to pass the current MVA Bill in the upcoming session so that we contribute towards saving of 413 lives every day or 17 lives an hour. The new MVA bill has strict penal provisions to arrest crashes / deaths / injuries on 5 scientifically identified areas. The Risk Factors are namely:

1. Seat Belt
2. Speeding
3. Helmet
4. Drink and Driving
5. Child Restraints

The passage of this Bill by Rajya Sabha should be given a priority and all members cutting across political party lines should ensure that the Bill is passed and road travels are not a killer in the near future.

Please sign the petition for the sake of our safety on roads.