'Sleeping drivers' major cause of accidents on Yamuna e-way : RTI

Lucknow: A major reason for road accidents between 2012 to 2023 on the 165-kilometre Yamuna Expressway, connecting Agra with NOIDA, has been found to be sleep-deprived drivers dozing off while driving.

Compared to 2022, there were 100 more accidents on the expressway in 2023.

This information was obtained from Yamuna Expressway Industrial Development Authority in response to the application moved by road safety activist and lawyer KC Jain under the (RTI) Act.

It was also said that speed cameras installed on Yamuna Expressway are monitoring only those over-speeding.

"It was informed that there were 100 more accidents in 2023, when compared to 2022, on the Yamuna Expressway. There were 311 road accidents in 2022 but the number rose to 411 in 2023. The number of injured in 2022 was 621 but that number rose to 725 in 2023. However, it was a matter of relief that number of deaths in 2023 (92) was fewer than the deaths in 2022 (102)," Jain said.

"On average, a man died every four days in 2023 and two were injured every day on Yamuna Expressway," he said.

Jain further informed that "There were 7,625 road accidents between 2012 (the year Yamuna Expressway was inaugurated) and 2023, and amongst these, the reason mentioned for maximum cases i.e. 3,364 was ‘Driver Dozed off while driving’, while over-speeding was the reason for 1,304 accidents. In this duration (2012-2023) there were 1,320 deaths and 522 people lost their lives because the sleep-starved driver ‘dozed off while sleeping. The other major reason was over-speeding which claimed 201 lives."

Of the 11,168 injured, 4,181 were injured because of the driver falling asleep while driving and 1,819 were injured because of over-speeding. In 2023 alone, 3 crore vehicles moved on the Yamuna Expressway," said the reply to the RTI.