Little done by stakeholders to fix accidentprone spots

LETHAL LOCATIONS Few alterations to roads and infra can reduce accidents, but officials fail to react despite being given a yearly list of dangerous areas

NEW DELHI: At the end of every year, the Delhi Traffic Police sends out a list of “most accidentprone areas” to all stakeholders, including the Public Works Department (PWD), the three municipalities (east, north and south Delhi municipal corporations), and the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC). As lives are lost in these stretches, this list ends up being stacked in files.

For the last decade despite the list being prepared every year, there is little that government agencies have done to make these stretches safer and reduce accidents. In Delhi, the 136 “most accident-prone areas” in the city continue to retain their positions in list year after year.

In 2008, the Delhi Traffic Police first started compiling a list of the most dangerous stretches in the city. North Delhi’s Mukundpur Chowk on the Ring Road, which had topped the list then with 42 accidents, still features on top with 26 accidents in 2017.

Similarly, Burari Chowk — fourth on the list then — reported 28 accidents in 2008. Last year, there were 23 accidents, placing it fifth on the list.

In both these stretches, commuters face problems because of flaws in road engineering and problems such as improper signal timing.

Joint commissioner of police (traffic) Garima Bhatnagar said accidents are caused by two major reasons — faulty road design or the fault of drivers and other road users. “We have deployed additional force on the most problematic stretches. However, better enforcement can only bring down those accidents where someone is at fault. A comprehensive road safety plan will surely help bring down such acci- dents,” Bhatnagar said.

She also said that apart from strong enforcement, the police also regularly coordinate with road owning agencies and pass on observations on these stretches.

“The whole point of making a list of accident prone areas is to assess the faults in these roads and to fix them so that the accident numbers can be reduced. There is no point in maintaining a long list if no action is taken,” said Dr S Velmurugan senior principal scientist, traffic engineering and safety division, Council for Scientific and Industrial Research-central Road Research Institute (CSIR-CRRI).

Velmurugan said in most of these stretches, minor alterations made by the road owning agencies can solve the woes of drivers and pedestrians.

“It will not be a major financial investment to fix these stretches and make them safer for the road users, but the agencies need to join hands in finding a solution.”

PWD officials said the department has started working to fix these problem areas. A PWD official, who did not wish to be named, said each of these stretches would be inspected and the problems there dealt with.

“Under the road safety policy

The whole point of making a list of accidentprone areas is to assess the faults in these roads and to fix them so that the accident numbers can be reduced. There is no point in maintaining a long list if no action is taken.

DR S VELMURUGAN, senior principal scientist, CSIR-CRRI

accident prone spots have been repeating with minor change in order; One was added in 2016

List prepared every year by Delhi Traffic Police and sent to road owning agencies, but no action tailor-made solutions will be implemented on each of these accident-prone stretches. We have started inspecting the areas and identifying problems,” the official said.

In a study conducted by the Delhi Traffic Police in 2016, on the causes of road accidents in the city, it was found that in 50.6% of the crash cases the cause was not known. As much as 42.7% was

An overwhelming majority of these accident zones are around north Delhi

Areas like Mukundpur Chowk, Burari, Azardpur, Peeragarhi, Britannia Chowk and Bhalswa Chowk continue to retain their positions in list for the last 10 years. These areas have all featured on the top of the list repeatedly attributed to drivers’ fault, 1.6% to road environment factors, 1.1% to faulty road engineering and design, 1.7%accidents are caused due to the victims’ fault, while the 0.9% accidents are caused due mechanical faults in vehicles.

“Here we consider the traffic unit of the police to be a toothless tiger; all they do is issue fines for traffic violations. However, in most countries abroad the traffic unit has trained investigators who examine accident spots and present detailed reports on the conditions that led to road crashes,” said Sendil Kumar, senior researcher in transport and road design from Indian Institute of Technology (Delhi).

Lack of training among the first responders and a protocol for accident investigation will go a long way in saving lives, he said.