Alappuzha: The roads in the state continue to be death traps due to various factors like rash and negligent driving, speeding, alcoholism, increasing vehicle population and poor road facilities.
The net result is that accidents claim on an average 11 lives and injure 117 daily, according to the statistics of the State Crime Records Bureau.
Realising the gravity of the situation, health minister K.K. Shylaja on Saturday approved the opening of emergency medicine department at the Thiruvananthapuram Medical College to provide state-of-the-art trauma care facility.
The system will be introduced in Alappuzha, Ernakulam, Thrissur, Kozhikode and Kottayam medical colleges also. This will help coordinate various departments, including em-ergency, orthopaedics and surgery for ensuring timely care to accident victims. The absence of such coordination had caused delay in the treatment leading to loss of lives. According to the SCRB data, 3,699 people were killed and 39,014 injured in 35,124 accidents in the state till November last. The number of deaths was 2,674 in 2001. In 2016, the toll was 4,287 while 44,108 were injured in 39,420 accidents.
State police chief Loknath Behera had asked district police chiefs in October 2016 to take a series of steps to minimise road accidents. However, the efforts of district-level road safety authorities have made no great impact. Two-wheelers continue to be the worst victims of accidents.
An analysis made by the SCRB shows the following number of accidents involving various vehicles. Motorcycles-19,648, cars- 9,270, autorickshaws- 4,117, private state carriers- 2,559, lorries- 2,300, KSRTC buses-940, mini-buses-368 and jeeps-670.
According to a former scientist with the National Transportation Planning and Research Centre, the increasing population of vehicle is an important reason for the accidents.
“The road facilities do not improve in proportion to the number of vehicles and speeding is common,” he said. In 2016, rash driving resulted in 32,055 accidents, drunk driving 182 and other reasons 851 out of a total of 39,420.
