The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : More vehicles, more fatalities

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Jan 08, 2005

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

More vehicles, more fatalities

The year 2004 had 20 more people losing their lives in road accidents than the previous year.

Various factors have been cited for this increase in fatalities, chief among them being the phenomenal increase in the number of vehicles particularly two-wheelers.

The available records show that the city's vehicle population as on date includes 17.14 lakh two-wheelers and 5.75 lakh four-wheelers.

The other types of vehicles include 80,600 taking the total to 23.71 lakh vehicles.

K.C. Mahali, Joint Commissioner of Police, Traffic, notes that the city has a road length of 1,800 km. Of this only 1,000 km is efficiently used. Another officer notes that when the carrying capacity of a road gets exceeded, the situation only leads to flouting of rules, resulting in road accidents.

Urban road traffic experts say that the police have to identify the time of day when more accidents take place.

They can then change the signalling system or introduce changes in the movement of vehicles on roads.

They also point out that the existing flyovers need to be opened up for two-way traffic. This will also help cut accidents. With the arrival of high-speed two-wheelers, the number of violations has increased considerably. A few years ago only autorickshaw drivers used to violate road rules, impacting on the movement of other vehicles.

But now high-speed two-wheelers and turbo-powered cars also have started violating road rules, say traffic experts.

This is a specific issue to be addressed by traffic managers. The city traffic police say they conduct awareness programmes among various types of road-users including the drivers of autorickshaw and tanker lorries.

A total of 2,788 water tanker drivers have been given training to improve their driving skills, say traffic police authorities.

The awareness programme included training on road rules, first-aid and behaviour with the members of public. The police have programmes not only for the road-users but also for the members of public. People could enrol themselves as volunteers in Road Safety Patrols, Traffic Warden sand Citizen for Safe Roads, they said.

A common complaint against the police is that they have failed to properly design signals or introduce sound one-way systems.

Annually about Rs. 10 lakhs is allocated for spreading awareness among people, say the police who claim that to some extent they have been successful in their endeavour. However, traffic experts say that concerted work by various government agencies is needed for better traffic management.

Experts suggest that the signals should be designed according to peak hour flow, non-peak hour flow and lean hour traffic.

Similarly, the one-way system should be enforced during morning and evening peak hours at specific junctions.

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More vehicles, more fatalities