India sees 1.4 lakh road accident deaths every year. Time for action

• The number of deaths due to road accidents reported in India from 2010 to 2014.

• If you wanted to fly these many people somewhere, you would need 1,200 Airbus A380s, the largest civilian airliner in the world.

• This is also higher than malaria deaths around the world.

• The European Union reported 25,700 road accident deaths in 2014, while India reported 141,526 - approximately five times more.

• On average, this means 137,762 fatalities every year.

• The total length of the road network in India, as of March 2012, making it the second network in the world after USA.

• In 2010, the rate of people dying in road accidents was 1.2 per thousand persons. In 2014, it improved to 0.9.

• In the same period, however, road accidents increased by 4.7%.

• The number of vehicles on the roads increased by a whopping 38.7%.

• The amount the Union government plans to spend between 2015 and 2019 to improve the situation at accident hot spots like dangerous intersections.

• This means just Rs 2,200 crore per year for road safety.

• This is only 5% of the Central investment into the National Highway Authority of India in 2015-16.

• Some other measures the government wants to introduce include compulsory airbags in cars, establishing a road safety authority and introducing the Road Transport and Safety Bill.

• The Bill envisages new statutory bodies that are accountable to Parliament, reforms in the licencing and permit systems and increase in punishments.

• According to the NGO SaveLife Foundation, 88% of bystanders do not help road crash victims due to the fear of legal problems.

• Half the road crash victims die from treatable injuries.

• There is also a 111% underreporting of road accidents.

• Annual loss due to road accidents as a share of India's GDP.

• Though India accounts for 1% of global vehicles, 10% of global car crash deaths occur in India.

• Analysis by the government shows that 2 lakh lives can be saved in five years, and the GDP improved by 4%, if the proposed Bill is followed in its entirety.

The importance of road safety can be understood by the fact that the United Nations has also declared 2011-20 as the 'Decade of Action on Road Safety'. It's high time some concrete steps were taken.

More in Catch:

Five children killed in Chhattisgarh road accident, eight severely injured

#JLF2016: Molly Crabapple on migrants, gaza, Iraq & Syria

Who cares about Modi's model village scheme? Not even his ministers

In pictures, the magnificent Mrinalini Sarabhai: danseuse, poet, activist