Hyderabad: Road safety measures and engineering corrections at “accident hotspots” can bring down the number of mishaps.
The state government has also made it mandatory to involve “road safety” clauses in the contracts being given for construction and development of road projects.
Officials involved in taking up road safety measures and making engineering corrections at the accident prone areas said the best example is the Peddakunta Thanda on NH-44 — the Hyderabad-Bengaluru Highway (formerly NH-7) which had come to light for becoming a “village of widows”.
“Rumble strips were placed due to which vehicles are slowing down when they approach the highway at the Thanda.
At a recent meeting convened by the Mahabubnagar district collector, it was also decided to put up railings or continuous fencing as a road divider from one end of the village to the other so that villagers do not have the option of crossing the road but use the underpass constructed there.
Though many villagers are continuing to cross the road without using the underpass, accidents have come down at this spot,” said Telangana State Roads and Buildings (NH-Hyd) executive engineer Mr S. Surender.
Officials said accident hotspots keep changing. “There are many reasons for accidents to occur, such as over speeding, rash driving, drunken driving and also due to cellphone driving, lack of road-cum-traffic sense, sudden pedestrian crossing, unqualified drivers and lack of vehicle fitness. In many cases, it is not engineering corrections, but traffic sense among the road users that brings down the accident rate on highways,” said NHAI reg-ional officer, Telangana, J. Chandrasekhar Reddy.
Deputy commissioner of police (Hyderabad traffic) Mr A.V. Ranganath said engineering corrections like straightening of blind curves, and if land is not available to make corrections, then putting up speed breakers, sign boards and proper road markings, if needed signals, will also help in reducing accidents.
“Some accident hotspots change and some don’t. This is not only because of improper road length or uniform road width with a straight view but also because of reckless driving,” he said.
