India to use Facebook, Twitter to reduce accidents

NEW DELHI, INDIA: The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways and International Road Federation (IRF) are planning to use social networking websites including Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to help reduce fatal accidents by 50 per cent in the next three years, officials said on Monday.

"For generating mass awareness about road safety, apart from using traditional media tools including advertising, billboards, posters, modern web based social networking tools that include Facebook, blogs, Twitter and YouTube will be used to spread knowledge of road safety," K K Kapila, vice chairman of IRF, said here in a statement.

The ministry and IRF last week launched a national campaign "Reduction of Road Fatalities" for reducing road accidents by 50 per cent in the country by 2012.

According to the statement, India presently accounts for 10 percent of global road accident deaths.

©IANS