Should the data about the driving licence and vehicles not be compiled at national level?
16 Apr, 2012According to the data obtained through an application filed under the Right to Information (RTI) Act, road accidents lead to 600 deaths on an average in Mumbai alone every year. As per the statistics of Traffic Police, rash driving by driver led to 98.7% of fatal accidents in 2011while a negligible number were caused by reasons like bad roads, mechanical defects in vehicles and pedestrians' fault. Rash driving by driver as a cause of fatal accidents has shown an increase over 2007 when only 78% of fatal accidents were attributed to the driver's recklessness. The number of accidents occurring at night is high when the speed of the vehicle is more.
It has been attributed to the lack of formal training for drivers. Getting a driving license is easy and even if it is impounded in one state, one can get it in another state as there is no computerised information regarding drivers at national level. There is a need to make the driving license a unique document like a passport and no person should be able to get it till the competency in driving is proved.
The positive aspect of the data is that the total number of accidents decreased from 29,906 in 2007 to 25,471 in 2011.