Interviewtimes 
In India, 75 per cent of households’ incomes are affected by road accidents. Poor families have to live on a loss of six months of livelihoods for a single road accident. On the contrary, according to a report prepared by the World Bank on road safety, the losses of the economically disadvantaged are less than 1 month.
Union Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari on Saturday unveiled the report titled ‘Traffic Crash Injuries and Disabilities: The Burden on Indian Societies’. It describes the impact of road accidents on poor families.
The report highlights the relationship between poverty, inequality and sensitive road users. The study, based on road safety, was conducted by a national NGO called Save Life. The report, based on surveys in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra, assesses the social, economic and psychological impact of road accidents on poor and deprived families.
The report recommends a policy-based approach to saving the lives of victims of accidents and improving their capabilities. In response, the Union Minister of Underground Transport said that many positive efforts have been made to reduce the death toll from road accidents in India.
“We are working with all sections of the society to reduce the number of deaths due to road accidents in the country by 50 per cent by 2025,” he said. We were being warned about road accidents and poverty,” he said. The Union Minister, therefore, urges all states to implement the Revised Motor Vehicles Act 2019 in their respective states as a result of the immediate effect.
The report also looks at the impact of road accidents in rural and urban areas. It mentions that rural areas are more affected than urban ones. In rural areas, the highest percentage of people is affected by road accidents, with 56 percent. In urban areas, low-income poor families accounted for 28.5 percent and high-income rural households 37.5 percent.
However, for the first time, women are more likely to be poor or financially injured in road accidents. In such cases, women have to work harder as their family responsibilities increase. Even the responsibility of caring for the injured in the accident falls on the woman in the house, the report said.
Fifty percent of women after the accident are severely affected by low family income. Sixty percent of them are affected by women’s work habits, while 11 percent of women are forced to work harder to increase their income, the report said.
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