UT sees no road fatality in April for first time in 10 yrs

POLICE SAY THEY WILL ENCOURAGE PEOPLE TO KEEP USING BICYCLES EVEN AFTER CURFEW IS LIFTED TO MAINTAIN SOCIAL DISTANCING

CHANDIGARH: The curfew set up in the city due to the Covid-19 outbreak has presented a silver lining. As per the data released by the UT traffic police, April this year was the first month in at least a decade without a single fatal road accident.

The total number of road fatalities in 2019 was 98.

This number till April 2019 was 23, which has come down to 13 this year for the same period. The April of 2019 itself had reported four fatal accidents.

Till 2010, there wasn’t a single month without a fatal accident being reported in the city. No data was available for the last time when there were zero accidents in a month in the city.

CHALLENGE WILL START AFTER LOCKDOWN

Deputy inspector general of police (DIG, traffic) Shashank Anand said the result wasn’t much cause for celebration and was along expected lines.

“Due to the curfew there has hardly been any traffic on the roads and a large number of nakas have been set up. So fatal accidents were bound to come down,” he said, adding that the challenge will start when normal life resumes.

He added that the traffic police will push people to adopt cycling as a means of transportation after the restrictions were lifted: “Cycling will help maintain social distancing while reducing pollution and road fatalities. Even the World Health Organization has recommended that people cycle to move around whilst Covid-19 is active.”

Road safety activist Harpreet Singh said the authorities should use this time to push people towards other modes of transport. “We are being presented with a second chance to keep traffic congestion and pollution in the city from reaching the previous dangerous levels,” he said.

A member of the UT Road Safety Council, Harman Sidhu, said after curfew, a spike in accident cases may follow. “Authorities will have to be on their toes. People should continue to ditch cars and walk the way Le Corbusier intended,” he said.