Number of road accidents dips in State
13 Oct 2020 08:05:53
By Dheeraj Fartode :
THE road safety measures taken by Maharashtra Highway Police (MHP) are bearing fruits as the number of road accidents and fatalities is decreasing in State. The State has recorded a drop of 8.47 per cent in all road accidents while road fatalities decreased by 3.56 per cent in year 2019. As per the statistics of road accidents from year 2016 to 2019, the State had recorded maximum 39,878 road accidents in year 2016. The number dropped to 36,056 in year 2017, to 35,717 in year 2018 and to 32,925 in year 2019. In effect, road accidents came down in Maharashtra by 17.43 per cent in last four years.
Further analysis of the data showed that ‘without injury accidents’ played major role in bringing down graph of ‘overall accidents’ in the State. A total of 6,271 ‘without injury accidents’ were recorded in Maharashtra in year 2016 and the figure reduced to 3,568 with record drop of 43.10 per cent in year 2019. Maharashtra recorded 11,787 fatal accidents in year 2019 as compared to 12,098 in year 2018 with drop of 2.57 per cent. The Highway Police with their extensive efforts also managed to bring down road fatalities from 13,648 in year 2018 to 12,788 last year with drop of 3.56 per cent. In 2016, a total of 12,935 persons were killed in 11,780 fatal accidents while 12,511 persons were killed in 11,454 fatal accidents in year 2017.
Dr Bhushan Kumar Upadhyay, Additional Director General of Police (ADGP), Traffic, Maharashtra, told ‘The Hitavada’ that the reducing number of the road accidents was the result of efforts taken by the Highway and State police over the years. “Mumbai-Pune Expressway and Pune, Solapur, Ahmednagar, Nashik districts are contributing around 30 per cent road accidents in Maharashtra. The Highway Police had introduced Intelligent Traffic Management System on the expressway. As a result, fatal accidents reduced on the expressway from 94 in year 2018 to 74 in year 2019. Similarly, fatalities on the expressway reduced to 92 last year as compared to 110 deaths reported in year 2018,” Dr Upadhyay said. The former Nagpur Police boss further added that the number of black spots also reduced to 1,000 from 1,050 by Highway Police with corrective measure.
“This helped the police in making road safer for the users,” he said. Dr Upadhyay further explained that major cause of road accidents was over-speeding and drunk driving followed by road indiscipline, using mobile phone while driving, non-compliance of using helmets and seat belts, overtaking and jumping signals. “A total of 96 interceptor vehicles armed with speed guns were distributed across the State last year to counter the overspeeding menace. Of them, 66 were given to Highway Police and 34 were allotted to district units,” he said. These vehicles helped the police a lot in curbing the menace of overspeeding which ultimately resulted in reducing number of road accidents,” Dr. Upadhyay claimed. It may be mentioned that 27 per cent road accidents and fatalities are caused in the State due to improper road conditions and infrastructure. The information came to fore in a study conducted by the Highway Police last year.