Kerala - Kannur   

Road Safety Week campaigns begin

Staff Reporter

`Avoid speeding and overloading' is the theme

STRESS ON SAFETY: The film artiste Baby Sanoosha releasing the Road Safety Week logo in Kannur on Monday.

KANNUR: Observance of the Road Safety Week began here on Monday, with the theme `Avoid speeding and overloading.'

Campaigns to create awareness among people on road safety will be held during the observance till January 8.

District Collector K.S. Srinivas inaugurated the observance. Municipal chairman K. Upendran presided over the function. Superintendent of Police Mathew Polycarp read out the road safety message.

Regional Transport Officer K.M. Purushothaman, quoting District Crime Bureau figures, said the district had recorded 1,501 road accidents till November in 2005, killing 103 people and seriously injuring 731. As many as 1,967 people had minor injuries. Seventy per cent of head injury cases reported in the State was caused by road accidents.

According to the figures, rash driving was the major cause of road accidents. Speakers at the function underlined the importance of improved road engineering, enforcement of road rules and awareness education to reduce road accidents. The problem was not lack of rules but absence of civic sense, they said.

As many as 80,000 people were dying in road accidents in the country every year. The number of new vehicles coming out on the roads annually was 3.5 lakhs. On an average, 24 deaths were reported per 10,000 vehicles, which was 15 times more than that in developed countries. The State stood third in the rate of road accidents. Pedestrians made up a majority of the victims of road accident. Though night-time road traffic was only one-fifth of that in day, more accidents occurred at night. The State had only four per cent of the total vehicles in the country, but its accident rate was 12 per cent, they added.

Earlier at the function, the film actor Baby Sanusha released the logo of the Road Safety Week.

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