15 key stretches in city witnessing over-speeding: Study

A study conducted by the Citizen Consumer and Civic Action Group (CAG) has found that over-speeding of vehicles, including two-wheelers and cars on 15 major arterial stretches in the city, against the speed limits are common.

According to the report titled ‘Slowdown — An assessment of speeding concerns and their management in Chennai’, speeding is driving too fast or the behaviour of exceeding speed limits.

This has far-ranging consequences and is one of the significant factors contributing to road crashes.

As per the State Crime Records Bureau (SCRB) report of 2020, 98.57% of accidents in Tamil Nadu occurred due to driver’s fault including over-speeding and aggressive driving.

The authors of the report, Varsha Vasuhe V and Sumana Narayanan, conducted spot speed-surveys to examine variations in speeding across selected vehicle categories in 15 major arterial stretches in the city. The stretches include GNT Road, Anna Nagar, EVR Salai, Anna Salai, Peters Road, Harrington Road, Adyar, GST Road and ECR.

Sumana said that the findings revealed that drivers were non-compliant to posted speed limits. “The trend is similar across the different vehicle categories with contextual variations depending upon the road class and quality of existing infrastructure,” she said.

The Anna Salai arterial stretch witnesses consistent over-speeding by two-wheelers and cars at Nandanam and Teynampet junctions with 85% of two-wheelers travelling at, or below, 53 kmph and 66 kmph as against the posted speed limit of 40 kmph.

“Cars consistently exhibited over-speeding behaviour (compared to motorbikes) in the Teynampet area with 85% travelling at, or below, 75 kmph despite witnessing heavy traffic,” she explained.

Sumana added that over-speeding on the arterial stretch along the ECR in Akkarai was relatively lesser due to the variable message sign boards, vehicle actuated speed signs and the auto-generated challans, all of which have significantly impacted over-speeding in the area.

All 15 locations in the study witnessed consistent over-speeding by autos and share autos.

“There’s definitely a need to couple speed limits with supporting laws and speed policies, active enforcement strategies, public education, and review the legislated process of formulating speed limits,” she pointed out.

The study also concludes that legislators should consult traffic engineers, policymakers, public health officials and all road users to formulate appropriate speed limits that place safety at the forefront and judiciously calculating travel time and feasibility of enforcement.

“We found that speed limits signboards are neither visible nor present on most of the arterial stretches,” laments Sumana.