Hyderabad: It has been found that the major reasons for accidents in the city roads are faulty road design, improper junctions and several other infrastructure defects at the mishap prone areas.
Officials says these defects were overlooked and never rectified in the past, as only vehicle users were blamed for the accidents. Following a survey, the Hyderabad traffic police has submitted a report to Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation explaining the action to be taken on these black spots in order to rectify the defects.
Rash driving, drunk driving, signal jumping, and wrong-side driving are also the prime causes of accidents. The police report implied that infrastructure defects cause more mishaps than the fault of vehicle drivers. “Accident rates can be drastically brought down by repairing these defects. But it can only be done slowly and steadily,” said Hyderabad traffic Police DCP Shyam Sunder.
“Issues like narrow roads, steep curves, slope of the roads, blind corners, improper illumination, improper traffic junctions (without signals), and lack of speed signboards are found to be the major infrastructural issues. At some places there are even GHMC parking lots on the roadside becoming reasons for road accidents,” said a senior police official from Hyderabad traffic police.
Under Panjagutta traffic police station limits, where the most number of accidents take place, steep curve from the flyover at Khairatabad junction, slope of the flyover and narrow road between the junction and Panjagutta, lack of lights between Monappa to MMTS station, and narrow roads at Shalimar and towards Greenlands in Ameerpet are found to be the cause of accidents.
Hike in penalties to curb accidents
Hyderabad traffic police used to impose fine of only Rs 100 rupees penalty for helmet and seat belt rule violations. The continued failure of implementation of headgear and seat belt rule is attributed to the meagre fine amount and the reluctance of people to abide by the rules.
Now with the introduction of the new amendment bill by the Central government on Motor Vehicle Act, the fine amount is likely to be increased to Rs 2,500 for not wearing a helmet and Rs 5,000 for not wearing a seat belt. Experts say the new hike, if it is materialises, would change the city scenario completely.
Bikers remain the most vulnerable to road mishaps among the vehicle users in the city with at least six bikers crashing on the roads every day.
In the first five months of this year, 477 bikers were victims in the mishaps, a total of 355 two-wheeler riders caused accidents on the city roads, revealed the police records. The police records also reveal that in most of these accidents, victims either are killed or seriously injured. The Hyderabad police data said around 380 four wheelers have crashed on the city roads in five months. The number of four wheelers involved in road mishaps is twice the number of mishaps involving autos, buses and trucks put together.
“However, if the penalty amount is increased, it would have a positive effect on the implementation of this rule,” said Hyderabad Traffic Police DCP Mr. Shyam Sunder.
Traffic police identifies risky areas in city
In order to curb the increasing number of road mishaps, for the first time, Hyderabad traffic police identified the major “black spots” in the city, where most of the road accidents take place. Roads in Jubilee Hills, Banjara Hills, Panjagutta, and Saifabad, Bowenpally, Langer houz, and one place in Secunderabad which falls under Gopalapuram police limits have been identified as the most dangerous by the police. Among these places, Gopalpuram, Panjagutta, and Langer house areas topped the list with maximum fatal accidents and deaths, police officials said.
The traffic police data revealed that as many as seven mishaps take place everyday in the city. In five months of this year, around 1,056 road mishaps had taken place in which 966 people were injured and 162 people were killed. The data revealed the accident rate is shooting up day by day.
“We conducted the survey on road accidents in order to understand the alarming rate of mishaps in different parts of city and also what caused them. By analysing the collected information, we gave required remedies to resolve the problems,” said Mr. Shyam Sunder, DCP of Hyderabad traffic police.
