The Mumbai-Nagpur Samruddhi Expressway was launched in December 2022.
Mumbai:
A total of 39 people have lost their lives and 143 have been injured in crashes on the Mumbai-Nagpur Samruddhi highway since its launch in December 2022 until the end of April this year, a senior police official has said.
Speaking to the media on Friday, the State Highway Police official said “road hypnotism” was one of the causes of the crashes.
Traffic hypnosis, also known as white line fever, is an altered mental state that drivers experience due to “automaticity” or the process of doing things automatically without actively thinking about the steps involved.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi had inaugurated on December 11, 2022 the first phase of the highway between Nagpur and Shirdi which covers a distance of 520 km. The total length of the project, officially named “Hindu Hrudaysamrat Balasaheb Thackeray Maharashtra Samruddhi Mahamarg”, is 701 km. The project aims to reduce the travel time from Nagpur to Mumbai to seven hours.
“There were 358 accidents in Samruddhi Corridor between December 12, 2022 and April 30, 2023. Of these, 24 accidents resulted in 39 fatalities, while 143 were injured in 54 accidents. The national highway police are tackling the problem,” he said.
“Throughout Maharashtra, there were 15,224 fatalities in road accidents in 2022. Of these fatalities, 57% were of two and three wheeler drivers. Pedestrian fatalities accounted for 21%. Some 43% of crashes occurred on Other District Roads (ODRs) across the state,” the official added.