The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : Death lurks on State highways

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, May 05, 2004

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

Death lurks on State highways

By Our Staff Reporter

HYDERABAD, MAY 3. More than 70 deaths in road `crashes' in last three weeks. That gives ample testimony to how the State highways have turned death traps. Despite the increase in road accidents, there is little reaction from the authorities concerned. Officials are silent as to what measures are being initiated to bring down the accident rate.

As many as 20 persons were killed in three separate mishaps on April 13. Seventeen others were killed in three accidents on April 30. On May 2, 19 people were killed in five districts. Several were injured in these accidents. While the police are yet to ascertain the exact reasons that resulted in these mishaps, majority of them were head on collisions.

In the two mishaps on April 13, drivers of the car and auto-rickshaw involved in the accidents hit the vehicles coming from the opposite direction while trying to overtake. The third occurred when the speeding lorry carrying 25 members of a marriage party overturned killing four of them. In all the three mishaps, the drivers were going at breakneck speed, typical of heavy vehicles plying on national highways.

"Though lives are lost both in homicides and accidents, investigations into the latter are never taken seriously. About 1,000 persons are being killed on an average on the roads in and around the State capital, but no Government agency can give you specific reasons behind the mishaps because no scientific analysis has been made so far," a police officer said.

That raises the question of what steps the Government would initiate when it does not know the exact causes behind the mishaps. The role of the State Highway Safety Authority, with the Chief Minister and an officer of the rank of Additional DGP as its Chairman and Director-General, is merely confined to analysing the accidents and suggesting corrective measures. Even this is being done a few days after the mishaps are reported.

As a result, by the time the Safety Authority is passing its recommendations after studying a major accident, yet another road accident is being reported on the same highway.

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Andhra Pradesh