SAFETY CONDITIONS ON NATIONAL HIGHWAYS

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LOK SABHA

National Highways leading out of Delhi are four lane divided carriageway facilities which are safer than undivided carriageway.

The number of accidents per 10,000 vehicles have been declining in the country from 110 in 1996 to around 78 in 2001.

Government is taking engineering, enforcement and education measures to control accidents. Engineering measures include improvement in riding surface and widening of high traffic density corridors to 4/6 lane divided carriageway facility, improvement of horizontal and vertical alignment, improvement of at-grade intersections and provision of over and under passes for crossing facilities, segregation of local traffic in built up portion through provision of service roads, provision of adequate road signs and markings, provision of wayside amenities like rest areas, bus bay and truck parking and provision of additional safety features such as steel beam safety barriers and pedestrian safety guard rails.

Road safety audit is proposed to be taken up for the completed four lane sections of National Highways for identification of hazardous locations and taking corrective measures.

Highway Traffic Management System (HTMS) has been installed on 86 km long Kotputli-Amer Section of NH-8 with facilities of emergency call boxes at every two kilometer interval, variable message signs at 6 vantage locations, Close Circuit Television (CCTV) Monitoring System, Mobile communication system, highway patrolling, crane and ambulance. These are all controlled from a control centre. This is intended to be replicated at other suitable stretches.

This information was given by the Minister of State for Road Transport and Highways, Shri Shripad Yesso Naik in a written reply to a question of Shri Bhaskarrao Patil, Dr. M.P. Jaiswal and Shri Haribhai Chaudhary in Lok Sabha today.