The overall five-year toll was given by Union Minister Nitin Jairam Gadkari in response to a question by Shyamkumar Daulat Barve on road accidents, fatalities and road safety across all categories of roads. A separate reply to a question by Naveen Jindal and Adv Gowaal Kagada Padavi, focused specifically on National Highways, showed that 1,255 of the 4,287 deaths occurred on NH stretches over the same period, with the remainder on state highways, district roads and other categories. Pedestrians make up nearly a fourth of deathsThe data also showed 1,011 of the 4,287 fatalities over five years were pedestrians, close to a fourth of the total. This age-wise breakup is available only for National Highway deaths, not for all road fatalities, as the government's replies did not provide an age-wise split for the broader category. Government responseThe government said road accidents are the result of a complex interplay of human error, road conditions and vehicular factors, and cited a four-pronged strategy, Education, Engineering, Enforcement and Emergency Care, to address the issue.