The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : Cyberabad roads veritable death traps Law & order

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Saturday, Dec 15, 2007
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

Cyberabad roads veritable death traps Law & order

The dance of death on the roads of the Cyberabad Commissionerate goes on unabated, writes Marri Ramu

Several theories are mooted, innumerable solutions suggested. But the dance of death on the roads of Cyberabad Commissionerate goes on unabated.

The alarming figures of 863 deaths in 2005 and 1,020 deaths in 2006 in road accidents took a frightening turn with 1,050 lives already lost by the end of November.

Fatal accident rate

Interestingly, the fatal accident rate in the city could be contained - it in fact came down from 418 in 2004 to 344 deaths in 2005.

But, the accident figures on the city’s outskirts present a pessimistic picture.

The question is when the Hyderabad police could check, if not bring down, loss of lives in road accidents, why cannot their counterparts in Cyberabad?

Many factors

From the high average speed of vehicles to presence of heavy vehicles to inadequate lighting on the roads to poor condition of roads, there are many factors that contribute to the scaring accident figures.

For example, 395 pedestrians died in Cyberabad till now this year.

Ironically, there are more foot overbridges (FOBs) in central parts of the city than on its fringe areas.

“Forget about FOBs, even road marking or signage is not properly done on the thoroughfares in Cyberabad. Efforts to alert people about pedestrian deaths are nil,” the people say.

Traffic menace

Light poles are being erected on some main roads ‘now’.

Many busy intersections have no traffic signal light facilities.

For want of strength, the traffic police are not able to post men at a large number of junctions.

Heavy vehicles are a big traffic menace and are responsible for killing more people than any other category of vehicles.

Nearly one third of road accident deaths occurred on internal roads.

No manpower

Lack of manpower to regulate vehicles on these stretches is the reason, the police say.

Instead of knee-jerk reactions, a comprehensive strategy coupled with better facilities and awareness campaign among commuters would bring down the accidents, traffic experts opine.

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