NH-8 reports 100 deaths this year

The central government may be working towards National Highway-8 to be free of traffic congestion however, it still has to deal with the challenge of

making Delhi –Jaipur highway safe for commuters and pedestrians.

According to official statistics, there have already been more than 100 deaths at NH-8 this year.

Most of the accidents and casualties have been reported from areas of Pachgaon Chowk, IMT Chowk, Bilaspur and Manesar market area.

Most of the victims seem to be pedestrians and two wheeler riders.

For the last five years, there have been more than thousand cases of accidents leading to more than four hundred casualties.

In 2014 there were 1,180 cases of accidents leading to 430 deaths. In 2015, the cases slightly reduced to 1,140 but the death toll was higher at 435 while in 2016 there were 1,201 incidents of accidents leading to 420 deaths.

High number of overloaded vehicles, over speeding vehicles, poor road signage's, poor road designs and large number of drivers taking

wrong turns are some of the major reasons mentioned by traffic officials of the increase in accidents.

Recently, the Gurugram Police had added more than 300 personnel in the traffic department.

Most of them are being deployed at NH-8 to prevent the fatal accidents.

"The Delhi-Jaipur Highway for long has been an unsafe stretch. There is blatant violation of traffic rules by the heavy vehicles that over speed and drive rashly after you cross the Manesar stretch," said Rajeev Jain, a city resident who uses the route daily to commute to Bawal.

Taking cognisance of the dangers to the commuters at NH-8, the public authorities have taken measures of installation of lights at the dark zones, improving the signages and penalising the overloaded vehicles.