World’s deadliest roads in focus after Cyrus Mistry’s fatal crash

The car accident over the weekend that killed Cyrus Mistry — scion of one of India’s best-known business families — has reignited concerns about the poor state of India’s roads, identified by the World Bank as the world’s deadliest.

Mistry, who was 54, died on Sunday during a trip between Ahmedabad and Mumbai after the car he was in hit a divider on a bridge. Images circulating on social media showed skid-marks of a Mercedes veering off the road just next to a pothole. Airbags in the rear didn’t inflate.

While India has built the world’s second-biggest road network spanning 5.89 million kilometers (3.7 million miles), its highways are often marred by shoddy construction and poor maintenance.