‘KILLER’ MOBILE PHONES
Isn’t it sad that 1,040 lives have been lost across the country in 2021 in road accidents caused by reckless use of mobile phones while driving? This has been disclosed by Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) in a report published recently. It also divulged that a total of 4,12,432 road accidents occurred in 2021, which claimed 1,53,972 lives while 3,84,448 people were injured. Looking into the details about cell phones wreaking havoc, the report titled ‘Road accidents in India — 2021’ has many startling facts like 1,997 road accidents occurred in 2021 due to the use of the mobile phone by drivers while driving, which claimed the aforesaid number of lives. It has come to fore that many lives had been perished in the year 2021 due to casual approach shown by the commuters with regard to traffic norms making it a national problem because all the lives lost in these accidents could have been saved if the people have shown adequate concern towards following the traffic norms. The situation with regard to wearing of seat belts and helmets, and following traffic signals is also pathetic and has taken away many lives in the year 2021 raising a big question mark on centre and various state governments for remaining complacent over implementation of traffic rules in letter and spirit. The MoRTH report has pointed out that road accidents are multi-causal which requires multi-pronged measures to mitigate the problem through concerted efforts of all agencies of both central government and state governments. It is good that reportedly the concerned ministry has formulated a multi-pronged strategy to address the issue of road safety based on education, engineering (both of roads and vehicles), enforcement and emergency care and therefore it is likely that fatalities and number of accidents would see a considerable fall in the coming time. It is a matter of common sense that use of mobiles while on wheels is dangerous and therefore people should stop doing such things which even a layman knows are risky and can snatch away lives.